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JUL. I US CAESAlo 



THE LIVES 



THE TWELVE CjESARS 



S 



BY 



C. SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS. 

THE TRANSLATION OF 

ALEXANDER THOMSON, M. D. 

REVISED AND CORRECTED 



ILLUSTRATED. 



2*- 




PHILADELPHIA : 

GEBBIE & CO., Publishers, 
1883. 



)\-\ 






COPYRIGHTED, GEBBIE & CO., 1882. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



C. Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of a Roman knight who com- 
manded a legion, on the side of Otho, at the battle which decided the fate of 
the empire in favour of Vitellius. From incidental notices in the following 
History, we learn that he was born towards the close of the reign of Vespa- 
sian, who died in the year 79 of the Christian era. He lived till the time of 
Hadrian, under whose administration he filled the office of secretary ; until, 
with several others, he was dismissed for presuming on familiarities with the 
empress Sabina, of which we have no further account than that they were 
unbecoming his position in the imperial court. How long he survived this 
disgrace, which appears to have befallen him in the year 121, we are not 
informed ; but we find that the leisure afforded him by his retirement, was 
employed in the composition of numerous works, of which the most im- 
portant was " The Lives of the Twelve Caesars." 

The plan adopted by Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, led 
him to be more diffuse on their personal conduct and habits than on public 
events. He writes Memoirs rather than History. 

When we stop to gaze in a museum or gallery on the antique busts of 
the Caesars, we perhaps endeavour to trace in their sculptured physiognomy 
the characteristics of those princes, who, for good or evil, were in their times 
masters of the destinies of a large portion of the human race. The pages of 
Suetonius will amply gratify this natural curiosity. In them we find a series 
of individual portraits sketched to the life, with perfect truth and rigorous 
impartiality. La Harpe remarks of Suetonius, " He is scrupulously exact, 
and strictly methodical. He omits nothing which concerns the person whose 
life he is writing; he relates everything, but paints nothing. His work is, in 
some sense, a collection of anecdotes, but it is very curious to read and 
consult." x 

1 Lycee, part I. liv. III. c. i. 



riss 



VI PREFACE. 

This edition of Suetonius' Caesars, is appropriately embellished by the 
celebrated series of portraits copied from authentic Busts of the Emperors 
by Visconti and now re-engraved for the illustration of this work. 

The perfection of marble or statue portraiture was attained in Rome 
soon after the conquest of Greece, B.C. 200, when not only the choicest works 
of Grecian art were transferred to Rome, but the most accomplished sculptors 
and painters also. Portraiture in Marble became a passion and a fashion, 
and we learn from the contemporary literature of the period, how faithful 
these portraits were. It flourished till the "decline" began under Commodus. 
When successive revolutions and conquests laid Rome in ruins, the ma- 
jority of those statues were buried in the fall ; many thrown into the Tiber, 
and nearly all forgotten in the dark ages which fell like a pall over the van- 
quished city : and it was not till Art in Rome had a new birth (after sleeping 
a thousand years) that those marble and bronze portraits were begun to be 
resurrected, and gradually, down to the present day, restored to the museums 
of Rome and other Capitals of Europe. 

Combining' as it does amusement and information, Suetonius's " Lives 
of the Caesars " was held in such estimation, that, so soon after the invention 
of printing as the year A. D. 1500, no fewer than eighteen editions had been 
published, and nearly* one hundred have since been added to the number. 
Critics of the highest rank have devoted themselves to the task of correcting 
and commenting on the text, and the work has been translated into every 
European language. Of the English translations, that of Dr. Alexander 
Thomson, published in 1796, has been .made the basis of the present. 

By the suppression of about two dozen lines in the entire work, which 

have been indicated by * * * * we have produced a work unobjectionable 

for general reading; the suppressed passages refer to grossly unnatural crimes 

which probably never were committed — but the relation of which was likely 

prompted by the political party rancour of the period. 



/ 



CONTENTS 



PAGES. 

i. Julius Cesar, i — 72 

2. Augustus, ....... 73 — 173 

3. Tiberius, 174 — 241 

4. Caligula, 242 — 295 

5. Claudius, 296 — 347 

6 Nero, . 348 — 407 

7. Galba, 408 — 427 

8. Otho, 428 — 440 

9. Vitellius, 441 — 457 

10. Vespasian, ....... 458 — 486 

11. Titus, 487 — 499 

12. domitian, 500 525 

13. General Index . . . . . 526 to end. 



Vll 



LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 



1. JULIUS CAESAR, Frontispiece 

From a colossal marble bust, formerly 
in the Farnese collection, and now in 
the Museum of Naples. It is one of 
the best authenticated portraits of this 
great man. 

2. CICERO, 17 

From an antique bust of unquestioned 
authenticity. It was long a possession 
of the Mattei family, Rome, but is now 
in the collection of the Duke of Well- 
ington, Apsley House, London. 

3. POMPEY 33 

From the colossal marble statue, dis- 
covered in the middle of the sixteenth 
century, near the ruins of Pompey's- 
theatre, and now in the Spada Palace, 
Rome. The statue was originally set 
up in a hall near the theatre, in which 
the Senate held its sessions. It was 
thrown down after the battle of Phar- 
salia, but re-erected by Csesar, who was 
afterwards slain at its base. Plutarch 
says : " Either by accident, or pushed 
hither by the conspirators, he [Caesar] 
expired on the pedestal of Pompey's 
statue, and dyed it with his blood." 



4. MARCUS BRUTUS, 

From an antique marble bust in the 
Chiaramonti Corridor of the Vatican. 

5. MARK ANTONY, 

From a choice marble bust in the 
Gallery of Florence. The genuineness 
of this head is unchallenged, and its 
excellent condition is attributed to the 
fact that it was not publicly exposed. 



49 



65 



PAGB. 

6. THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS C^E- 73 

SAR, 

From a beautiful antique bust in Pen- 
tellic marble, in the Louvre. 

7. LIVIA, WIFE. OF AUGUSTUS, . 128 

From the statue formerly in the 
Villa Pinciana, and now in the Louvre. 
Though in the guise of a Ceres, this 
statue was identified by Visconti as 
that of Livia. 



8. JULIA, DAUGHTER OF AUGUS- 
TUS, 



From the statue in the Louvre, in 
which she is represented as the goddess 
Ceres. 

9. MARCUS AGRIPPA, 

From a marble head recovered from 
the excavations of Gabies, and now in 
the Louvre. 



144 



160 



174 



10. THE EMPEROR TIBERIUS, 

From a head in Parian marble, re- 
covered in 1792. It is larger than life, 
and is one of the finest portraits of the 
emperors that have come down to us. 
It is in the Louvre. 

11. GERMANICUS 190 

From the fine marble bust in the Hall 
of the Emperors in the Museum of the 
Capitol. 

12. DRUSUS, BROTHER OF TIBE- 

RIUS, 21G 

From a bronze bust in the Louvre. 



13. THE EMPEROR CALIGULA, . 
From a bronze bust in the Louvre. 

ix 



242 



LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 



14. THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS, . . 296 

From a bronze bust, with laurel crown, 
in the Louvre. 

15. CLAUDIUS AND HIS FAMILY, . 305 

From a beautiful cameo in the Im- 
perial Cabinet at Vienna. According 
to Visconti and Mongez, the front bust 
on the left of the spectator is that of 
Claudius ; beside him is Messalina his 
wife. On the right are their two chil- 
dren, Britannicus (in front) and Octavia, 
the latter represented as Minerva, with 
the helmet and laurel crown. Messa- 
lina is invested with the turreted crown 
of Cybele, and the chaplet of ears of 
corn, attribute of Ceres. 

16. AGRIPPINA THE ELDER, MO- 

THER OF CALIGULA, ... 321 
From the fine sitting statue in the 
Museum of the Capitol. 

17. THE EMPEROR NERO, . . . . .348 

From the marble bust in the Louvre. 
This is doubtless the finest and most 
characteristic portrait of Nero that is 
known. The head is encircled with a 
rayed crown, an attribute of divinity 
given to the emperors after death ; but 
Nero wore this crown in contempt of 
usage. 

18. SENECA, . . 382 

From a bronze head recovered from 
the ruins of Herculaneum. It was 
identified by Fulvius Ursinus through 
a coin formerly in the cabinet of Cardi- 
nal Maffei. Although the coin has dis- 



appeared, the portrait so fully accords 
with the descriptions of the famous 
Stoic that Visconti has no doubt of its 
genuineness. It is in the Museum of 
Naples. 

19. THE EMPEROR GALBA, . . .408 

Owing to his short reign of only nine 
months, Galba's portraits are rare. 
Our plate is from a very fine bust of 
unquestionable identity, in the Louvre. 

20. THE EMPEROR OTHO, .... 428 

From a marble bust in the Louvre. 
Otho was bald and wore a wig, a fact 
which agrees with the arrangement of 
the hair in this portrait. 



21. THE EMPEROR VITELLIUS, 
From a marble bust in the Louvre. 



441 



22. THE EMPEROR VESPASIAN, . 458 

From a bronze bust in the Louvre. 
The portrait is fully certified by exist- 
ing coins and medals. 

23. THE EMPEROR TITUS 487 

From a fine marble statue in which 
the Emperor is represented in military 
costume, with the right arm extended, 
in the attitude of a general addressing 
his troops. The details are of superior 
workmanship. It is in the Louvre. 

24. THE EMPEROR DOMITIAN, . 500 

From a marble bust in the Louvre. 
The peculiarity in the hair, which rises 
from the forehead, will be noticed. 



THE 



TWELVE C^SARS 



CAIUS JULIUS CESAR. 

Julius Cesar, the divine, 1 lost his father 2 when he was in 
the sixteenth year of his age ; 3 and the year following, 
being nominated to the office of high-priest of Jupiter, 4 

1 Julius Ccesar Divus. Romulus, the founder of Rome, had the 
honour of an apotheosis conferred on him by the senate, under the 
title of Quirinus, to obviate the people's suspicion of his having been 
taken off by a conspiracy of the patrician order. Political circum- 
stances again concurred with popular superstition to revive this post- 
humous adulation in favour of Julius Caesar, the founder of the empire, 
who also fell by the hands of conspirators. It is remarkable in the his- 
tory of a nation so jealous of public liberty, that, in both instances, 
they bestowed the highest mark of human homage upon men who owed 
their fate to the introduction of arbitrary power. 

2 Pliny informs us that Caius Julius, the father of Julius Caesar, a 
man of praetorian rank, died suddenly at Pisa. 

3 a. u. c. (in the year from the foundation of Rome) 670 ; a. c. 
(before Christ) about 92. 

* Fla?nen Dialis. This was an office of great dignity, but subjected 
the holder to many restrictions. He was not allowed to ride on horse- 
back, nor to absent himself from the city for a single night. His wife 
was also under particular restraints, and could not be divorced. If she 
died, the flamen resigned his office, because there were certain sacred 
rites which he could not perform without her assistance. Besides other 
marks of distinction, he wore a purple robe called Icena, and a conical 
mitre called apex. 

1 



2 SUETONIUS. 

he repudiated Cossutia, who was very wealthy, although 
her family belonged only to the equestrian order, and to 
whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy. 
He then married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who 
was four times consul ; and had by her, shortly after- 
wards, a daughter named Julia. Resisting all the efforts 
of the dictator Sylla to induce him to divorce Cornelia, 
he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his sacerdotal 
office, his wife's dowry, and his own patrimonial estates ; 
and, being identified with the adverse faction, 1 was com- 
pelled to withdraw from Rome. After changing his place 
of concealment nearly every night, 2 although he was suf- 
fering from a quartan ague, and having effected his re- 
lease by bribing the officers who had tracked his footsteps, 
he at length obtained a pardon through the intercession 
of the vestal virgins, and of Mamercus ^Emilius and 
Aurelius Cotta, his near relatives. We are assured that 
when Sylla, having withstood for a while the entreaties 
of his own best friends, persons of distinguished rank, at 
last yielded to their importunity, he exclaimed — either by 
a divine impulse, or from a shrewd conjecture : " Your 
suit is granted, and you may take him among you ; but 
know," he added, " that this man, for whose safety you 
are so extremely anxious, will, some day or other, be the 
ruin of the party of the nobles, in defence of which you 
are leagued with me ; for in this one Caesar, you will find 
many a Marius." 

II. His first campaign was served in Asia, on the stafT 

1 Two powerful parties were contending at Rome for the supremacy ; 
Sylla being at the head of the faction of the nobles, while Marius 
espoused the cause of the people. Sylla suspected Julius Caesar of 
belonging to the Marian party, because Marius had married his aunt 
Julia. 

2 He wandered about for some time in the Sabine territory. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 3 

of the praetor, M. Thermus ; and being dispatched into 
Bithynia, 1 to bring thence a fleet, he loitered so long at 
the court of Nicomedes, as to give occasion to reports of 
lewd proceedings between him and that prince ; which 
received additional credit from his hasty return to Bithy- 
nia, under the pretext of recovering a debt due to a 
freedman, his client. The rest of his service was more 
favourable to his reputation ; and when Mitylene 2 was 
taken by storm, he was presented by Thermus with the 
civic crown. 3 

III. He served also in Cilicia, 4 under Servilius Isauricus, 
but only for a short time ; as upon receiving intelligence 

1 Bithynia, in Asia Minor, was bounded on the south by Phrygia ; 
on the west by the Bosphorus and Propontis ; and on the north by the 
Euxine sea. Its boundaries towards the east are not clearly ascer- 
tained, Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy differing from each other on the 
subject. 

2 Mitylene was a city in the island of Lesbos, famous for the study of 
philosophy and eloquence. According to Pliny, it remained a free city 
and in power one thousand five hundred years. It suffered much in the 
Peloponnesian war from the Athenians, and in the Mithridatic from the 
Romans, by whom it was taken and destroyed. But it soon rose again, 
having recovered its ancient liberty by the favour of Pompey ; and was 
afterwards much embellished by Trajan, who added to it the splendour 
of his own name. This was the country of Pittacus, one of the seven 
wise men of Greece, as well as of Alcaeus and Sappho. The natives 
showed a particular taste for poetry, and had, as Plutarch informs us, 
stated times for the celebration of poetical contests. 

3 The civic crown was made of oak-leaves, and given to him who had 
saved the life of a citizen. The person thus decorated wore it at public 
spectacles, and sat next the senators. When he entered, the audience 
rose up, as a mark of respect. 

4 A very extensive country of Hither Asia ; lying between Pamphylia 
to the west, Mount Taurus and Amanus to the north, Syria to the east, 
and the Mediterranean to the south. It was anciently famous for saffron ; 
and hair-cloth, called by the Romans cilichim, was the manufacture of 
this country. 



4 SUETONIUS. 

of Sylla's death, he returned with all speed to Rome, in 
expectation of what might follow from a fresh agitation 
set on foot by Marcus Lepidus. Distrusting, however, 
the abilities of this leader, and finding the times less 
favourable for the execution of this project than he had 
at first imagined, he abandoned all thoughts of joining 
Lepidus, although he received the most tempting offers. 

IV. Soon after this civil discord was composed, he pre- 
ferred a charge of extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, 
a man of consular dignity, who had obtained the honour 
of a triumph. On the acquittal of the accused, he resolved 
to retire to Rhodes, 1 with the view not only of avoiding 
the public odium which he had incurred, but of prosecut- 
ing his studies with leisure and tranquillity, under Apol- 
lonius, the son of Molon, at that time the most celebrated 
master of rhetoric. While on his voyage thither, in the 
winter season, he was taken by pirates near the island of 
Pharmacusa, 2 and detained by them, burning with indig- 
nation, for nearly forty days ; his only attendants being 
a physician and two chamberlains. For he had instantly 
dispatched his other servants and the friends who accom- 
panied him, to raise money for his ransom. 3 Fifty talents 
having been paid down, he was landed on the coast, when, 

1 A city and an island, near the coast of Caria, famous for the huge 
statue of the Sun, called the Colossus. The Rhodians were celebrated 
not only for skill in naval affairs, but for learning, philosophy, and elo- 
quence. During the latter periods of the Roman republic, and under 
some of the emperors, numbers resorted there to prosecute their studies ; 
and it also became a place of retreat to discontented Romans. 

2 Pharmacusa, an island lying off the coast of Asia, near Miletus. It 
is now called Parmosa. 

3 The ransom, too large for Caesar's private means, was raised by the 
voluntary contributions of the cities in the Asiatic province, who were 
equally liberal from their public funds in the case of other Romans who 
fell into the hands of pirates at that period. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 5 

having collected some ships, 1 he lost no time in putting to 
sea in pursuit of the pirates, and having captured them, 
inflicted upon them the punishment with which he had often 
threatened them in jest. At that time Mithridates was 
ravaging the neighbouring districts, and on Caesar's arrival 
at Rhodes, that he might not appear to lie idle while dan- 
ger threatened the allies of Rome, he passed over into 
Asia, and having collected some auxiliary forces, and 
driven the king's governor out of the province, retained 
in their allegiance the cities which were wavering and 
ready to revolt. 

V. Having been elected military tribune, the first hon- 
our he received from the suffrages of the people after his 
return to Rome, he zealously assisted those who took 
measures for restoring the tribunitian authority, which 
had been greatly diminished during the usurpation of 
Sylla. He likewise, by an act, which Plotius at his sug- 
gestion propounded to the people, obtained the recal of 
Lucius Cinna, his wife's brother, and others with him, who 
having been the adherents of Lepidus in the civil dis- 
turbances, had after that consul's death fled to Sertorius; 2 
which law he supported by a speech. 

VI. During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral 
orations from the rostra, according to custom, in praise 
of his aunt Julia, and his wife Cornelia. In the panegyric 
on his aunt, he gives the following account of her own 
and his father's genealogy, on both sides : " My aunt 
Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of 
kings, and by her father, from the Immortal Gods. For 
the Marcii Reges, 3 her mother's family, deduce their pedi- 

1 From Miletus, as we are informed by Plutarch. 

2 Who commanded in Spain. 

3 Rex, it will be easily understood, was not a title of dignity in a 
Roman family, but the surname of the Marcii. 



6 SUETONIUS. 

gree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, her fathers, from 
Venus ; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore 
unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the 
chiefest among men, and the divine majesty of Gods, to 
whom kings themselves are subject." To supply the 
place of Cornelia, he married Pompeia, the daughter of 
Quintus Pompeius, and grand-daughter of Lucius Sylla ; 
but he afterwards divorced her, upon suspicion of her 
having been debauched by Publius Clodius. For so cur- 
rent was the report, that Clodius had found access to her 
disguised as a woman, during the celebration of a reli- 
gious solemnity, 1 that the senate instituted an inquiry 
respecting the profanation of the sacred rites. 

VII. Farther-Spain 2 fell to his lot as quaestor; when 
there, as he was going the circuit of the province, by 
commission from the praetor, for the administration of 
justice, and had reached Gades, seeing a statue of Alex- 
ander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he sighed 
deeply, as if weary of his sluggish life, for having per- 
formed no memorable actions at an age 3 at which Alex- 
ander had already conquered the world. He, therefore, 
immediately sued for his discharge, with the view of em- 
bracing the first opportunity, which might present itself 
in The City, of entering upon a more exalted career. In 
the stillness of the night following, he dreamt that he lay 
with his own mother; but his confusion was relieved, and his 
hopes were raised to the highest pitch, by the interpreters 
of his dream, who expounded it as an omen that he should 

1 The rites of the Bona Dea, called also Fauna, which were performed 
in the night, and by women only. 

2 Hispania Bcetica ; the Hither province being called Hispania Tar- 
raconensis. 

3 Alexander the Great was only thirty-three years at the time of his 
death. 



JULIUS CAESAR 7 

possess universal empire ; for that the mother who in his 
sleep he had found submissive to his embraces, was no 
other than the earth, the common parent of all mankind. 

VIII. Quitting therefore the province before the expi- 
ration of the usual term, he betook himself to the Latin 
colonies, which were then eagerly agitating the design of 
obtaining the freedom of Rome ; and he would have 
stirred them up to some bold attempt, had not the con- 
suls, to prevent any commotion, detained for some time 
the leeions which had been raised for service in Cilicia. 
But this did not deter him from making, soon afterwards, 
a still greater effort within the precincts of the city 
itself. 

IX. For, only a few days before he entered upon the 
edileship, he incurred a suspicion of having engaged in a 
conspiracy with Marcus Crassus, a man of consular rank; 
to whom were joined Publius Sylla and Lucius Autronius, 
who, after they had been chosen consuls, were convicted 
of bribery. The plan of the conspirators was to fall upon 
the senate at the opening of the new year, and murder 
as many of them as should be thought necessary ; upon 
which, Crassus was to assume the office of dictator, and 
appoint Caesar his master of the horse. 1 When the com- 
monwealth had been thus ordered according to their plea- 
sure, the consulship was to have been restored to Sylla 
and Autronius. Mention is made of this plot by 2 Tanusius 

1 The proper office of the master of the horse was to command the 
knights, and execute the orders of the dictator. He was usually nomi- 
nated from amongst persons of consular and praetorian dignity ; and 
had the use of a horse, which the dictator had not, without the order 
of the people. 

2 Seneca compares the annals of Tanusius to the life of a fool, which, 
though it may be long, is worthless; while that of a wise man, like a 
good book, is valuable, however short. — Epist. 94. 



8 SUETONIUS. 

Geminus in his history, by Marcus Bibulus in his edicts, 1 
and by Curio, the father, in his orations. 2 Cicero likewise 
seems to hint at this in a letter to Axius, where he says, 
that Caesar had in his consulship secured to himself that 
arbitrary power 3 to which he had aspired when he was edile. 
Tanusius adds, that Crassus, from remorse or fear, did not 
appear upon the day appointed for the massacre of the 
senate ; for which reason Caesar omitted to give the signal, 
which, according to the plan concerted between them, he 
was to have made. The agreement, Curio says, was that 
he should shake off the toga from his shoulder. We have 
the authority of the same Curio, and of M. Actorius Naso, 
for his having been likewise concerned in another con- 
spiracy with young Cneius Piso ; to whom, upon a sus- 
picion of some mischief being meditated in the city, the 
province of Spain was decreed out of the regular course. 4 
It is said to have been agreed between them, that Piso 
should head a revolt in the provinces, whilst the other 
should attempt to stir up an insurrection at Rome, using 
as their instruments the Lambrani, and the tribes beyond 
the Po. But the execution of this design was frustrated 
in both quarters by the death of Piso. 

X. In his edileship, he not only embellished the Comi- 
tium, 5 and the rest of the Forum, with the adjoining 

1 Bibulus was Caesar's colleague, both as edile and consul. Cicero 
calls his edicts " Archilochian," that is, as full of spite as the verses of 
Archiloehus. — Ad. Attic, b. 7. ep. 24. 

2 a. u. c. 689. Cicero holds both the Curios, father and son, very 
cheap. — Brut. c. 60. 

3 Regnum, the kingly power, which the Roman people considered an 
insupportable tyranny. 

4 An honourable banishment. 

5 The assemblies of the people were at first held in the open Forum. 
Afterwards, a covered building, called the Comitium, was erected for 
that purpose. There are no remains of it, but Lumisden thinks that it 



JULIUS CAESAR. 9 

halls, 1 but adorned the Capitol also, with temporary piazzas, 
constructed for the purpose of displaying some part of the 
superabundant collections he had made for the amuse- 
ment of the people. 2 He entertained them with the hunt- 
ing of wild beasts, and with games, both alone and in 
conjunction with his colleague. On this account, he ob- 
tained the whole credit of the expense to which they had 
jointly contributed ; insomuch that his colleague, Marcus 
Bibulus, could not forbear remarking, that he was served 
in the manner of Pollux. For as the temple 3 erected in 
the Forum to the two brothers, went by the name of 
Castor alone, so his and Caesar's joint munificence was 
imputed to the latter only. To the other public spectacles 
exhibited to the people, Caesar added a fight of gladia- 
tors, but with fewer pairs of combatants than he had in- 
tended. For he had collected from all parts so great a 
company of them, that his enemies became alarmed ; and 

probably stood on the south side of the Forum, on the site of the present 
church of The Consolation. — Antiq. of Rome, p. 357. 

1 Basilicas, from Baadebq ; a king. They were, indeed, the palaces 
of the sovereign people ; stately and spacious buildings, with halls, which 
served the purpose of exchanges, council chambers, and courts of jus- 
tice. Some of the Basilicas were afterwards converted into Christian 
churches. "The form was oblong; the middle was an open space to 
walk in, called Testudo, and which we now call the nave. On each side 
of this were rows of pillars, which formed what we should call the side- 
aisles, and which the ancients called Porticus. The end of the Testudo 
was curved, like the apse of some of our churches, and was called Tri- 
bunal, from causes being heard there. Hence the term Tribune is 
applied to that part of the Roman churches which is behind the high 
altar." — Burton's A?itiq. of Rome, p. 204. 

2 Such as statues and pictures, the works of Greek artists. 

3 It appears to have stood at the foot of the Capitoline hill. Piranesi 
thinks that the two beautiful columns of white marble, which are com- 
monly described as belonging to the portico of the temple of Jupiter 
Stator, are the remains of the temple of Castor and Pollux. 



io SUETONIUS. 

a decree was made, restricting the number of gladiators 
which any one was allowed to retain at Rome. 

XI. Having thus conciliated popular favour, he endea- 
voured, through his interest with some of the tribunes, to 
get Egypt assigned to him as a province, by an act of the 
people. The pretext alleged for the creation of this ex- 
traordinary government, was, that the Alexandrians had 
violently expelled their king, 1 whom the senate had com- 
plimented with the title of an ally and friend of the Roman 
people. This was generally resented ; but, notwithstand- 
ing, there was so much opposition from the faction of the 
nobles, that he could not carry his point. In order, there- 
fore, to diminish their influence by every means in his 
power, he restored the trophies erected in honor of Caius 
Marius, on account of his victories over Jugurtha, the 
Cimbri, and the Teutoni, which had been demolished by 
Sylla ; and when sitting in judgment upon murderers, he 
treated those as assassins, who, in the late proscription, 
had received money from the treasury, for bringing in the 
heads of Roman citizens, although they were expressly 
excepted in the Cornelian laws. 

XII. He likewise suborned some one to prefer an im- 
peachment for treason against Caius Rabirius, by whose 
especial assistance the senate had, a few years before, 
put down Lucius Saturninus, the seditious tribune ; and 
being drawn by lot a judge on the trial, he condemned 
him with so much animosity, that upon his appealing to 
the people, no circumstance availed him so much as the 
extraordinary bitterness of his judge. 

XIII. Having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt 
for his province, he stood candidate for the office of chief 
pontiff, to secure which, he had recourse to the most pro- 

1 Ptolemy Auletes, the son of Cleopatra. 



JULIUS CAESAR. ii 

fuse bribery. Calculating, on this occasion, the enormous 
amount of the debts he had contracted, he is reported to 
have said to his mother, when she kissed him at his going 
out in the morning to the assembly of the people, " I will 
never return home unless I am elected pontiff." In effect, 
he left so far behind him two most powerful competitors, 
who were much his superiors both in age and rank, that 
he had more votes in their own tribes, than they both had 
in all the tribes together. 

XIV. After he was chosen praetor, the conspiracy of 
Catiline was discovered ; and while every other member 
of the senate voted for inflicting capital punishment on 
the accomplices in that crime, 1 he alone proposed that the 
delinquents should be distributed for safe custody among 
the towns of Italy, their property being confiscated. He 
even struck such terror into those who were advocates 
of seventy, by representing to them what universal odium 
would be attached to their memories by the Roman peo- 
ple, that Decius Silanus, consul-elect, did not hesitate to 
qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to 
change it, by a lenient interpretation ; as if it had been 
understood in a harsher sense than he intended, and 
Caesar would certainly have carried his point, having 
brought over to his side a great number of the senators, 
among whom was Cicero, the consul's brother, had not a 
speech by Marcus Cato infused new vigour into the reso- 
lutions of the senate. He persisted, however, in obstruct- 
ing the measure, until a body of the Roman knights, who 
stood under arms as a guard, threatened him with instant 
death, if he continued his determined opposition. They 
even thrust at him with their drawn swords, so that those 
who sat next him moved away ; and a few friends, with 

1 Lentulus, Cethegus, and others. 



12 SUETONIUS. 

no small difficulty, protected him, by throwing their arms 
round him, and covering him with their togas. At last, 
deterred by this violence, he not only gave way, but ab- 
sented himself from the senate-house during the remain- 
der of that year. 

XV. Upon the first day of his praetorship, he sum- 
moned Quintus Catulus to render an account to the 
people respecting the repairs to the Capitol j 1 proposing 
a decree for transferring the office of curator to another 
person. 2 But being unable to withstand the strong oppo- 
sition made by the aristocratical party, whom he perceived 
quitting, in great numbers, their attendance upon the 
new consuls, 3 and fully resolved to resist his proposal, he 
dropped the design. 

XVI. He afterwards approved himself a most resolute 
supporter of Caecilius Metellus, tribune of the people, 
who, in spite of all opposition from his colleagues, had 
proposed some laws of a violent tendency, 4 until they 
were both dismissed from office by a vote of the senate. 
He ventured, notwithstanding, to retain his post and 

1 The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was commenced and completed 
by the Tarquins, kings of Rome, but not dedicated till the year after 
their expulsion, when that honour devolved on M. Horatius Ful villus, 
the first of the consuls. Having been burnt down during the civil wars, 
a.u.c. 670, Sylla restored it on the same foundations, but did not live 
to consecrate it. 

2 Meaning Pompey ; not so much for the sake of the office, as having 
his name inserted in the inscription recording the repairs of the Capitol, 
instead of Catulus. The latter, however, secured the honour, and his 
name is still seen inscribed in an apartment at the Capitol, as its restorer. 

3 It being the calends of January, the first day of the year, on which 
the magistrates solemnly entered on their offices, surrounded by their 
friends. 

4 Among others, one for recalling Pompey from Asia, under the pre- 
text that the commonwealth was in danger. Cato was one of the col- 
leagues who saw through the design and opposed the decree. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 13 

continue in the administration of justice ; but finding that 
preparations were made to obstruct him by force of arms, 
he dismissed the lictors, threw off his gown, and betook 
himself privately to his own house, with the resolution of 
being quiet, in a time so unfavourable to his interests. 
He likewise pacified the mob, which two days afterwards 
flocked about him, and in a riotous manner made a vol- 
untary tender of their assistance in the vindication of his 
honour. This happening contrary to expectation, the 
senate, who met in haste, on account of the tumult, 
gave him their thanks by some of the leading members 
of the house, and sending for him, after high commen- 
dation of his conduct, cancelled their former vote, and 
restored him to his office. 

XVII. But he soon got into fresh trouble, being named 
amongst the accomplices of Catiline, both before Novius 
Niger the quaestor, by Lucius Vettius the informer, and 
in the senate by Quintus Curius ; to whom a reward had 
been voted, for having first discovered the designs of the 
conspirators. Curius affirmed that he had received his 
information from Catiline. Vettius even engaged to 
produce in evidence against him his own hand-writing, 
given to Catiline. Caesar, feeling that this treatment was 
not to be borne, appealed to Cicero himself, whether he 
had not voluntarily made a discovery to him of some 
particulars of 'the conspiracy; and so baulked Curius of 
his expected reward. He, therefore, obliged Vettius to 
give pledges for his behaviour, seized his goods, and after 
heavily fining him, and seeing him almost torn in pieces 
before the rostra, threw him into prison ; to which he 
likewise sent Novius the quaestor, for having presumed 
to take an information against a magistrate of superior 
authority. 

XVIII. At the expiration of his praetorship he obtained 



i 4 SUETONIUS. 

by lot the Farther-Spain, 1 and pacified his creditors, who 
were for detaining him, by finding sureties for his debts. 2 
Contrary, however, to both law and custom, he took his 
departure before the usual equipage and outfit were 
prepared. It is uncertain whether this precipitancy arose 
from the apprehension of an impeachment, with which he 
was threatened on the expiration of his former office, or 
from his anxiety to lose no time in relieving the allies, 
who implored him to come to their aid. He had no sooner 
established tranquillity in the province, than, without 
waiting for the arrival of his successor, he returned to 
Rome, with equal haste, to sue for a triumph, 3 and the 
consulship. The day of election, however, being already 
fixed by proclamation, he could not legally be admitted 
a candidate, unless he entered the city as a private per- 
son. 4 On this emergency he solicited a suspension of the 
laws in his favour; but such an indulgence being strongly 
opposed, he found himself under the necessity of aban- 
doning all thoughts of a triumph, lest he should be disap- 
pointed of the consulship. 

XIX. Of the two other competitors for the consulship, 

1 See before, p. 6. This was in a. u. c. 693. 

2 Plutarch informs us, that Csesar, before he came into office, owed 
his creditors 1,300 talents, somewhat more than ^565,000 sterling. 
But his debts increased so much after this period, if we may believe 
Appian, that upon his departure for Spain, at the expiration of his prse- 
torship, he is reported to have said, Bis millies et quingenties centena 
millia sibi adesse oportere, ut nihil haberet : i. e. That he was 2,000,000 
and nearly 20,000 sesterces worse than penniless. Crassus became his 
security for 830 talents, about ^871,500. 

3 For his victories in Gallicia and Lusitania, having led his army to 
the shores of the ocean, which had not before been reduced to sub- 
mission. 

4 Caesar was placed in this dilemma, that if he aspired to a triumph, 
he must remain outside the walls until it took place, while as a candi- 
date for the consulship, he must be resident in the city. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 15 

Lucius Luceius and Marcus Bibulus, he joined with the 
former, upon condition that Luceius, being a man of less 
interest, but greater affluence, should promise money to 
the electors, in their joint names. Upon which the party 
of the nobles, dreading how far he might carry matters 
in that high office, with a colleague disposed to concur 
in and second his measures, advised Bibulus to promise 
the voters as much as the other; and most of them con- 
tributed towards the expense, Cato himself admitting 
that bribery, under such circumstances, was for the pub- 
lic good. 1 He was accordingly elected consul jointly 
with Bibulus. Actuated still by the same motives, the 
prevailing party took care to assign provinces of small 
importance to the new consuls, such as the care of the 
woods and roads. Caesar, incensed at this indignity, en- 
deavoured by the most assiduous and flattering attentions 
to gain to his side Cneius Pompey, at that time dissat- 
isfied with the senate for the backwardness they showed 
to confirm his acts, after his victories over Mithridates. 
He likewise brought about a reconciliation between Pom- 
pey and Marcus Crassus, who had been at variance from 
the time of their joint consulship, in which office they 
were continually clashing ; and he entered into an agree- 
ment with both, that nothing should be transacted in the 
government, which was displeasing to any of the three. 

XX. Having entered upon his office, 2 he introduced a 
new regulation, that the daily acts both of the senate and 

1 Even the severe censor was biassed by political expediency to sanc- 
tion a system, under which what little remained of public virtue, and 
the love of liberty at Rome, were fast decaying. The strict laws against 
bribery at elections were disregarded, and it was practised openly, and 
accepted without a blush. Sallust says that everything was venal, and 
that Rome itself might be bought, if one was rich enough to purchase 
it. Jugurth. viii. 20, 3. 

2 a. u. c. 695. 



1 6 SUETONIUS. 

people should be committed to writing, and published. 1 
He also revived an old custom, that an officer 2 should 
precede him, and his lictors follow him, on the alternate 
months when the fasces were not carried before him. 
Upon preferring a bill to the people for the division of 
some public lands, he was opposed by his colleague, 
whom he violently drove out of the forum. Next day the 
insulted consul made a complaint in the senate of this 
treatment ; but such was the consternation, that no one 
having the courage to bring the matter forward or move 
a censure, which had been often done under outrages of 
less importance, he was so much dispirited, that until the 
expiration of his office he never stirred from home, and 
did nothing but issue edicts to obstruct his colleague's 
proceedings. From that time, therefore, Caesar had the 
sole management of public affairs ; insomuch that some 
wags, when they signed any instrument as witnesses, did 
not add " in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus," but, 
" of Julius and Caesar ;" putting the same person down 
twice, under his name and surname. The following verses 
likewise were currently repeated on this occasion : 

Non bibulo quidquam nuper, sed Caesare factum est ; 
Nam bibulo fieri consule nil memini. 

Nothing was done in Bibulus's year: 
No ; Caesar only then was consul here. 

1 The proceedings of the senate were reported in short notes taken 
by one of their own order, "strangers" not being admitted at their 
sittings. These notes included speeches as well as acts. These and 
the proceedings of the assemblies of the people, were daily published 
in journals [diurna], which contained also accounts of the trials at law, 
with miscellaneous intelligence of births and deaths, marriages and 
divorces. The practice of publishing the proceedings of the senate, 
introduced by Julius Caesar, was discontinued by Augustus. 

2 Within the city, the lictors walked before only one of the consuls, 
and that commonly for a month alternately. A public officer, called 




MM 



C1CER' 



JULIUS CAESAR. 17 

The land of Stellas, consecrated by our ancestors to the 
gods, with some other lands in Campania left subject to 
tribute, for the support of the expenses of the govern- 
ment, he divided, but not by lot, among upwards of twenty 
thousand freemen, who had each of them three or more 
children. He eased the publicans, upon their petition, 
of a third part of the sum which they had engaged to pay 
into the public treasury; and openly admonished them 
not to bid so extravagantly upon the next occasion. He 
made various profuse grants to meet the wishes of others, 
no one opposing him ; or if any such attempt was made, 
it was soon suppressed. Marcus Cato, who interrupted 
him in his proceedings, he ordered to be dragged out of 
the senate-house by a lictor, and carried to prison. Lucius 
Lucullus, likewise, for opposing him with some warmth, 
he so terrified with the apprehension of being criminated, 
that to deprecate the consul's resentment, he fell on his 
knees. And upon Cicero's lamenting in some trial the 
miserable condition of the times, he the very same day, 
by nine o'clock, transferred his enemy, Publius Clodius, 
from a patrician to a plebeian family ; a change which he 
had long solicited in vain. 1 At last, effectually to intimi- 
date all those of the opposite party, he by great rewards 
prevailed upon Vettius to declare, that he had been soli- 
cited by certain persons to assassinate Pompey ; and 
when he was brought before the rostra to name those 
who had been concerted between them, after naming one 
or two to no purpose, not without great suspicion of 
subornation, Caesar, despairing of success in this rash 

Accensus, preceded the other consul, and the lictors followed. This 
custom had long been disused, but was now restored by Caesar. 

1 In order that he might be a candidate for the tribuneship of the 
people ; it was done late in the evening, at an unusual hour for public 
business. 



1 8 SUETONIUS. 

stratagem, is supposed to have taken off his informer by 
poison. 

XXI. About the same time he married Calpurnia, the 
daughter of Lucius Piso, who was to succeed him in the 
consulship, and- gave his own daughter Julia to Cneius 
Pompey; rejecting Servilius Caepio, to whom she had 
been contracted, and by whose means chiefly he had but 
a little before baffled Bibulus. After this new alliance, 
he began, upon any debates in the senate, to ask Pom- 
pey's opinion first, whereas he used before to give that 
distinction to Marcus Crassus ; and it was the usual 
practice for the consul to observe throughout the year 
the method of consulting the senate which he had adopted 
on the calends (the first) of January. 

XXII. Being, therefore, now supported by the interest 
of his father-in-law and son-in-law, of all the provinces 
he made choice of Gaul, as most likely to furnish him 
with matter and occasion for triumphs. At first indeed 
he received only Cisalpine-Gaul, with the addition of Illyri- 
cum, by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people ; but 
soon afterwards obtained from the senate Gallia-Comata 1 

1 Gaul was divided into two provinces, Transalpina, or Gallia Ulte- 
rior, and Cisalpina, or Citerior. The Citerior, having nearly the same 
limits as Lombardy in after times, was properly a part of Italy, occu- 
pied by colonists from Gaul, and, having the Rubicon, the ancient boun- 
dary of Italy, on the south. It was also called Gallia Toga* a, from the 
use of the Roman toga; the inhabitants being, after the social war, 
admitted to the right of citizens. The Gallia Transalpina, or Ulterior, 
was called Comata, from the people wearing their hair long, while the 
Romans wore it short ; and the southern part, afterwards called Nar- 
bonensis, came to have the epithet Braccata, from the use of the braccce, 
which were no part of the Roman dress. Some writers suppose the 
braccce. to have been breeches, but Aldus, in a short disquisition on the 
subject, affirms that they were a kind of upper dress. And this opinion 
seems to be countenanced by the name braccan being applied by the 
modern Celtic nations, the descendants of the Gallic Celts, to signify 
their upper garment, or plaid. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 19 

also, the senators being apprehensive, that if they should 
refuse it to him, that province, also, would be granted 
him by the people. Elated now with his success, he could 
not refrain from boasting, a few days afterwards, in a full 
senate-house, that he had, in spite of his enemies, and to 
their great mortification, obtained all he desired, and that 
for the future he would make them, to their shame, sub- 
missive to his pleasure. One of the senators observing, 
sarcastically : " That will not be very easy for a woman 1 
to do," he jocosely replied, " Semiramis formerly reigned 
in Assyria, and the Amazons possessed great part of Asia." 
XXIII. When the term of his consulship had expired, 
upon a motion being made in the senate by Caius Mem- 
mius and Lucius Domitius, the praetors, respecting the 
transactions of the year past, he offered to refer himself 
to the house ; but they declining the business, after three 
days spent in vain altercation, he set out for his province.. 
Immediately, however, his quaestor was charged with sev- 
eral misdemeanors, for the purpose of implicating Caesar 
himself. Indeed, an accusation was soon after prefer- 
red against him by Lucius Antistius, tribune of the people; 
but by making an appeal to the tribune's colleagues, he 
succeeded in having the prosecution suspended during 
his absence in the service of the state. To secure him- 
self, therefore, for the time to come, he was particularly 
careful to secure the good-will of the magistrates at the 
annual elections, assisting none of the candidates with 
his interest, nor suffering any persons to be advanced to 
any office, who would not positively undertake to defend 
him in his absence : for which purpose he made no scruple 
to require of some of them an oath, and even a written 
obligation. 

1 Alluding, probably, to certain scandals of a gross character whir* 
were rife against Caesar. See before, c. ii. (p. 2). 



20 SUETONIUS. 

XXIV. But when Lucius Domitius became a candidate 
for the consulship, and openly threatened that, upon his 
being elected consul, he would effect that which he could 
not accomplish when he was praetor, and divest him of 
the command of the armies, he sent for Crassus and 
Pompey to Lucca, a city in his province, and pressed 
them, for the purpose of disappointing Domitius, to sue 
again for the consulship, and to continue him in his com- 
mand for five years longer ; with both which requisitions 
they complied. Presumptuous now with his success, he 
added, at his own private charge, more legions to those 
which he had received from the republic ; among the 
former of which was one levied in Transalpine Gaul, and 
called by a Gallic name, Alauda, 1 which he trained and 
armed in the Roman fashion, and afterwards conferred 
on it the freedom of the city. From this period he de- 
clined no occasion of war, however unjust and danger- 
ous ; attacking, without any provocation, as well the allies 
of Rome as the barbarous nations which were its ene- 
mies : insomuch, that the senate passed a decree for 
sending commissioners to examine into the condition of 
Gaul ; and some members even proposed that he should 
be delivered up to the enemy. But so great had been 
the success of his enterprises, that he had the honour of 
obtaining more days 2 of supplication, and those more 
frequently, than had ever before been decreed to any 
commander. 

XXV. During nine years in which he held the govern- 
ment of the province, his achievements were as follows : 

1 So called from the feathers on their helmets, resembling the crest 
of a lark ; Alauda, Fr. Alouette. 

2 Days appointed by the senate for public thanksgiving in the temples 
in the name of a victorious general, who had in the decrees the title of 
emperor, by which they were saluted by the legions. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 21 

he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the 
Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine and 
the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundred 
miles in compass, into the form of a province, excepting 
only the nations in alliance with the republic, and such as 
had merited his favour ; imposing upon this new acquisi- 
tion an annual tribute of forty millions of sesterces. He/ 
was the first of the Romans who, crossing the Rhine by a 
bridge, attacked the Germanic tribes inhabiting the coun- 
try beyond that river, whom he defeated in several en- 
gagements. He also invaded the Britons, a people for- 
merly unknown, and having vanquished them, exacted 
from them contributions and hostages. Amidst such a 
series of successes, he experienced thrice only any sig- 
nal disaster ; once in Britain, when his fleet was nearly 
wrecked in a storm ; in Gaul, at Gergovia, where one of 
his legions was put to the rout ; and in the territory of 
the Germans, his lieutenants Titurius and Aurunculeius 
were cut off by an ambuscade. 

XXVI. During this period 1 he lost his mother, 2 whose 
death was followed by that of his daughter, 3 and, not long 
afterwards, of his granddaughter. Meanwhile, the republic 
being in consternation at the murder of Publius Clodius, 
and the senate passing a vote that only one consul, 
namely, Cneius Pompeius, should be chosen for the en- 
suing year, he prevailed with the tribunes of the people, 
who intended joining him in nomination with Pompey, to 
propose to the people a bill, enabling him, though absent, 
to become a candidate for his second consulship, when 
the term of his command should be near expiring, that 
he might not be obliged on that account to quit his pro- 
vince too soon, and before the conclusion of the war. 

1 a. u. c. 702. 2 Aurelia. 

3 Julia, the wife of Pompey, who died in childbirth. 



22 SUETONIUS. 

Having attained this object, carrying his views still higher, 
and animated with the hopes of success, he omitted no 
opportunity of gaining universal favour, by acts of libe- 
rality and kindness to individuals, both in public and pri- 
vate. With money raised from the spoils of the war, he 
began to construct a new forum, the ground-plot of which 
cost him above a hundred millions of sesterces. 1 He 
promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators, 
and a feast in memory of his daughter, such as no one 
before him had ever given. The more to raise their ex- 
pectations on this occasion, although he had agreed with 
victuallers of all denominations for his feast, he made yet 
farther preparations in private houses. He issued an 
order, that the most celebrated gladiators, if at any time 
during the combat they incurred the displeasure of the 
public, should be immediately carried off by force, and 
reserved for some future occasion. Young gladiators he 
trained up, not in the school, and by the masters, of de- 
fence, but in the houses of Roman knights, and even 
senators, skilled in the use of arms, earnestly requesting 
them, as appears from his letters, to undertake the disci- 
pline of those novitiates, and to give them the word 
during their exercises. He doubled the pay of the le- 
gions in perpetuity; allowing them likewise corn, when it 
was in plenty, without any restriction ; and sometimes 
distributing to every soldier in his army a slave, and a 
portion of land. 

1 Conquest had so multiplied business at Rome, that the Roman forum 
became too little for transacting it, and could not be enlarged without 
clearing away the buildings with which it was surrounded. Hence the 
enormous sum which its site is said to have cost, amounting, it is cal- 
culated, to ^807,291 sterling. It stood near the old forum, 
behind the temple of Romulus and Remus, but not a vestige of it 
remains. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 23 

XXVII. To maintain his alliance, and good under- 
standing with Pompey, he offered him in marriage his 
sister's grand-daughter Octavia, who had been married 
to Caius Marcellus ; and requested for himself his daugh- 
ter, lately contracted to Faustus Sylla. Every person 
about him, and a great part likewise of the senate, he 
secured by loans of money at low interest, or none at all ; 
and to all others who came to wait upon him, either by 
invitation or of their own accord, he made liberal pre- 
sents ; not neglecting even the freedmen and slaves, who 
were favourites with their masters and patrons. He offered 
also singular and ready aid to all who were under prose- 
cution, or in debt, and to prodigal youths ; excluding from 
his bounty those only who were so deeply plunged in 
guilt, poverty, or luxury, that it was impossible effectually 
to relieve them. These, he openly declared, could derive 
no benefit from any other means than a civil war. 

XXVIII. He endeavoured with equal assiduity to en- 
gage in his interest princes and provinces in every part 
of the world ; presenting some with thousands of cap- 
tives, and sending to others the assistance of troops, at 
whatever time and place they desired, without any autho- 
rity from either the senate or people of Rome. He like- 
wise embellished with magnificent public buildings the 
most powerful cities not only of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, 
but of Greece and Asia ; until all people being now as- 
tonished, and speculating on the obvious tendency of 
these proceedings, Claudius Marcellus, the consul, declar- 
ing first by proclamation, that he intended to propose a 
measure of the utmost importance to the state, made a 
motion in the senate that some person should be ap- 
pointed to succeed Caesar in his province, before the 
term of his command was expired ; because the war being 
brought to a conclusion, peace was restored, and the vie- 



24 SUETONIUS. 

torious army ought to be disbanded. He further moved, 
that Caesar being absent, his claims to be a candidate at 
the next election of consuls, should not be admitted, as 
Pompey himself had afterwards abrogated that privilege 
by a decree of the people. The fact was, that Pompey, 
in his law relating to the choice of chief magistrates, had 
forgot to except Caesar, in the article in which he declared 
all such as were not present incapable of being candi- 
dates for any office ; but soon afterwards, when the law 
was inscribed on brass, and deposited in the treasury, he 
corrected his mistake. Marcellus, not content with de- 
priving Caesar of his provinces, and the privilege intended 
him by Pompey, likewise moved the senate, that the free- 
dom of the city should be taken from those colonists 
whom, by the Vatinian law, he had settled at New Como; 1 
because it had been conferred upon them with ambitious 
views, and by a stretch of the laws. 

XXIX. Roused by these proceedings, and thinking, as 
he was often heard to say, that it would be a more diffi- 
cult enterprise to reduce him, now that he was the chief 
man in the state, from the first rank of citizens to the 
second, than from the second to the lowest of all, Caesar 
made a vigorous opposition to the measure, partly by 
means of the tribunes, who interposed in his behalf, and 
partly through Servius Sulpicius, the other consul. The 
following year likewise, when Caius Marcellus, who suc- 
ceeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship, pursued the 
same course, Caesar, by means of an immense bribe, en- 
gaged in his defence ^Emilius Paulus, the other consul, 

1 Comum was a town of the Orobii, of ancient standing, and formerly 
powerful. Julius Caesar added to it five thousand new colonists ; whence 
it was generally called Novocomum. But in time it recovered its ancient 
name, Comum ; Pliny the younger, who was a native of this place, call- 
ing it by no other name. 



JULIUS CJESXR. 25 

and Caius Curio, the most violent of the tribunes. But 
finding the opposition obstinately bent against him, and 
that the consuls-elect were also of that party, he wrote a 
letter to the senate, requesting that they would not de- 
prive him of the privilege kindly granted him by the 
people ; or else that the other generals should resign the 
command of their armies as well as himself; fully per- 
suaded, as it is thought, that he could more easily collect 
his veteran soldiers, whenever he pleased, than Pompey 
could his new-raised troops. At the same time, he made 
his adversaries an offer to disband eight of his legions 
and give up Transalpine-Gaul, on condition that he might 
retain two legions, with the Cisalpine province, or but one 
legion with Illyricum, until he should be elected consul. 

XXX. But as the senate declined to interpose in the 
business, and his enemies declared that they would enter 
into no compromise where the safety of the republic was 
at stake, he advanced into Hither-Gaul, 1 and, having gone 
to the circuit for the administration of justice, made a halt 
at Ravenna, resolved to have recourse to arms if the sen- 
ate should proceed to extremity against the tribunes of the 
people who had espoused his cause. This was indeed his 
pretext for the civil war; but it is supposed that there 
were other motives for his conduct. Cneius Pompey used 
frequently to say, that he sought to throw every thing into 
confusion, because he was unable, with all his private 
wealth, to complete the works he had begun, and answer, 
at his return, the vast expectations which he had excited 
in the people. Others pretend that he was apprehensive 
of being called to account for what he had done in his 
protests of the tribunes ; Marcus Cato having sometimes 
declared, and that, too, with an oath, that he would prefer 

1 A.U.C. 705. 



26 SUETONIUS. 

an impeachment against him, as soon as he disbanded his 
army. A report likewise prevailed, that if he returned as 
a private person, he would, like Milo, have to plead his 
cause before the judges, surrounded by armed men. This 
conjecture is rendered highly probable by Asinius Pollio, 
who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the vanquished 
and slaughtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed 
himself in these very words : " This was their intention : 
I, Caius Caesar, after all the great achievements I had per- 
formed, must have been condemned, had I not summoned 
the army to my aid !" Some think, that having contracted 
from long habit an extraordinary love of power, and hav- 
ing weighed his own and his enemies' strength, he em- 
braced that occasion of usurping the supreme power ; 
which indeed he had coveted from the time of his youth. 
This seems to have been the opinion entertained by 
Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that 
Caesar used to have frequently in his mouth two verses 
of Euripides, which he thus translates: 

Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia 
Violandum est : aliis rebus pietatem colas. 

Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws, 
For sovereign power alone can justify the cause. 1 

XXXI. When intelligence, therefore, was received, that 
the interposition of the tribunes in his favour had been 
utterly rejected, and that they themselves had fled from 
the city, he immediately sent forward some cohorts, but 
privately, to prevent any suspicion of his design ; and, to 

1 El'xep yap dd'.xetv %py, Topavvl8oq nipt 
KdXXifTtov ddixslv raXXa ds kua&ftelv xpsibv. 

— Eurip. Phoeniss. Act II., where Eteocles aspires to become the tyrant 
of Thebes. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 27 

keep up appearances, attended at a public spectacle, ex- 
amined the model of a fencing-school which he proposed 
to build, and, as usual, sat down to table with a numerous 
party of his friends. But after sun-set, mules being put 
to his carriage from a neighbouring mill, he set forward 
on his journey with all possible privacy, and a small reti- 
nue. The lights going out, he lost his way, and wandered 
a long time, until at length, by the help of a guide, whom 
he found towards day-break, he proceeded on foot through 
some narrow paths, and again reached the road. Coming 
up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which 
was the boundary of his province, 1 he halted for a while, 
and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he 
was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him, 
and said : "We may still retreat ; but if we pass this 
little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in 
arms." 

XXXII. While he was thus hesitating, the following 
incident occurred. A person remarkable for his noble 
mien and graceful aspect, appeared close at hand, sitting 
and playing upon a pipe. When, not only the shepherds, 
but a number of soldiers also flocked from their posts 
to listen to him, and some trumpeters among them, he 
snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran to the river 
with it, and sounding the advance with a piercing blast, 
crossed to the other side. Upon this, Caesar exclaimed, 
" Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the iniquity 
of our enemies call us. The die is now cast." 

XXXIII. Accordingly, having marched his army over 
the river, he shewed them the tribunes of the people, 
who, upon their being driven from the city, had come to 

1 Now the Pisatello ; near Rimini. There was a very ancient law of 
the republic, forbidding any general, returning from the wars, to cross 
the Rubicon with his troops under arms. 



28 SUETONIUS. 

meet him ; and, in the presence of that assembly, called 
upon the troops to pledge him their fidelity, with tears in 
his eyes, and his garment rent from his bosom. It has 
been supposed, that upon this occasion he promised to 
every soldier a knight's estate ; but that opinion is found- 
ed on a mistake. For when, in his harangue to them, 
he frequently held out a finger of his left hand, 1 and de- 
clared, that to recompense those who should support 
him in the defence of his honor, he would willingly part 
even with his ring ; the soldiers at a distance, who could 
more easily see than hear him while he spoke, formed 
their conception of what he said, by the eye, not by the 
ear ; and accordingly gave out, that he had promised to 
each of them the privilege of wearing the gold ring, and 
an estate of four hundred thousand sesterces. 2 

XXXIV. Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a 
cursory detail, in the order in which they occurred. 3 He 
took possession of Picenum, Umbria, and Etruria ; and 
having obliged Lucius Domitius, who had been tumul- 
tuously nominated his successor, and held Corsinium with 
a garrison, to surrender, and dismissed him, he marched 
along the coast of the Upper Sea, to Brundusium, to which 
place the consuls and Pompey were fled with the inten- 
tion of crossing the sea as soon as possible. After vain 
attempts, by all the obstacles he could oppose, to prevent 
their leaving the harbour, he turned his steps towards 

1 The ring was worn on the finger next to the little finger of the left 
hand. 

2 Suetonius here accounts for the mistake of the soldiers with great 
probability. The class to which they imagined they were to be pro- 
moted, was that of the equites, or knights, who wore a gold ring, and 
were possessed of property to the amount stated in the text. Great as 
was the liberality of Caesar to his legions, the performance of this ima- 
ginary promise was beyond all reasonable expectation. 

3 a.u.c. 706. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 29 

Rome, where he appealed to the senate on the present 
state of public affairs ; and then set out for Spain, in which 
province Pompey had a numerous army, under the com- 
mand of three lieutenants, Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afra- 
nius, and Marcus Varro ; declaring amongst his friends, 
before he set forward, " That he was going against an 
army without a general, and should return thence against 
a general without an army." Though his progress was 
retarded both by the siege of Marseilles, which shut her 
gates against him, and a very great scarcity of corn, yet 
in a short time he bore down all before him. 

XXXV. Thence he returned to Rome, and crossing 
the sea to Macedonia, blocked up Pompey during almost 
four months, within a line of ramparts of prodigious ex- 
tent ; and at last defeated him in the battle of Pharsalia. 
Pursuing him in his flight to Alexandria, where he was 
informed of his murder, he presently found himself also 
engaged, under all the disadvantages of time and place, 
in a very dangerous war, with king Ptolemy, who, he saw, 
had treacherous designs upon his life. It was winter, and 
he, within the walls of a well-provided and subtle enemy, 
was destitute of every thing, and wholly unprepared for 
such a conflict. He succeeded, however, in his enter- 
prise, and put the kingdom of Egypt into the hands of 
Cleopatra and her younger brother ; being afraid to make 
it a province, lest, under an aspiring prefect, it might 
become the centre of revolt. From Alexandria he went 
into Syria, and thence to Pontus, induced by intelligence 
which he had received respecting Pharnaces. This prince, 
who was son of the great Mithridates, had seized the op- 
portunity which the distraction of the times offered for 
making war upon his neighbours, and his insolence and 
fierceness had grown with his success. Caesar, however, 
within five days after entering his country, and four hours 



3 o SUETONIUS. 

after coming in sight of him, overthrew him in one deci- 
sive battle. Upon which, he frequently remarked to those 
about him the good fortune of Pompey, who had obtained 
his military reputation, chiefly, by victory over so feeble 
an enemy. He afterwards defeated Scipio and Juba, who 
were rallying the remains of the party in Africa, and 
Pompey's sons in Spain. 

XXXVI. During the whole course of the civil war, he 
never once suffered any defeat, except in the case of his 
lieutenants ; of whom Caius Curio fell in Africa, Caius 
Antonius was made prisoner in Illyricum, Publius Dola- 
bella lost a fleet in the same Illyricum, and Cneius Domi- 
tius Calvinus, an army in Pontus. In every encounter 
with the enemy where he himself commanded, he came 
off with complete success ; nor was the issue ever doubt- 
ful, except on two occasions : once at Dyrrachium, when, 
being obliged to give ground, and Pompey not pursuing 
his advantage, he said that " Pompey knew not how to 
conquer ;" the other instance occurred in his last battle 
in Spain, when, despairing of the event, he even had 
thoughts of killing himself. 

XXXVII. For the victories obtained in the several 
wars, he triumphed five different times ; after the defeat 
of Scipio four times in one month, each triumph succeed- 
ing the former by an interval of a few days ; and once 
again after the conquest of Pompey's sons. His first and 
most glorious triumph was for the victories he gained in 
Gaul ; the next for that of Alexandria, the third for the 
reduction of Pontus, the fourth for his African victory, 
and the last for that in Spain ; and they all differed from 
each other in their varied pomp and pageantry. On the 
day of the Gallic triumph, as he was proceeding along 
the street called Velabrum, after narrowly escaping a fall 
from his chariot by the breaking of an axle-tree, he as- 



JULIUS C^SAR. 31 

cended the Capitol by torch-light, forty elephants 1 carry- 
ing torches on his right and left. Amongst the pageantry 
of the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was 
carried before him : I came, I saw, I conquered ; 2 not sig- 
nifying, as other mottos on the like occasion, what was 
done, so much as the dispatch with which it was done. 

XXXVIII. To every foot soldier in his veteran legions, 
besides the two thousand sesterces paid him in the begin- 
ning of the civil war, he gave twenty thousand more, in 
the shape of prize-money. He likewise allotted them 
lands, but not in contiguity, that the former owners might 
not be entirely dispossessed. To the people of Rome, 
besides ten modii of corn, and as many pounds of oil, he 
gave three hundred sesterces a man, which he had for- 
merly promised them, and a hundred more to each for 
the delay in fulfilling his engagement. He likewise remit- 
ted a year's rent due to the treasury, for such houses in 
Rome as did not pay above two thousand sesterces a 
year ; and through the rest of Italy, for all such as did 
not exceed in yearly rent five hundred sesterces. To all 
this he added a public entertainment, and a distribution 
of meat, and, after his Spanish victory, 3 two public din- 
ners. For, considering the first he had given as too 
sparing, and unsuited to his profuse liberality, he, five 
days afterwards, added another, which was most plentiful. 

XXXIX. The spectacles he exhibited to the people 
were of various kinds ; namely, a combat of gladiators, 4 

1 Elephants were first introduced at Rome by Pompey the Great, in 
his African triumph. 

2 Veni, Vidi, Vici. 

3 A.U.C. 708. 

4 Gladiators were first publicly exhibited at Rome by two brothers 
called Bruti, at the funeral of their father, a.u.c. 490 ; and for some time 
they were exhibited only on such occasions. But afterwards they were 
also employed by the magistrates, to entertain the people, particularly 



32 SUETONIUS. 

and stage-plays in the several wards of the city, and in 
different languages ; likewise Circensian games, 1 wrest- 

at the Saturnalia, and feasts of Minerva. These cruel spectacles were 
prohibited by Constantine, but not entirely suppressed until the time of 
Honorius. 

1 The Circensian games were shews exhibited in the Circus Maximus, 
and consisted of various kinds : first, chariot and horse-races, of which 
the Romans were extravagantly fond. The charioteers were distributed 
into four parties, distinguished by the colour of their dress. The spec- 
tators, without regarding the speed of the horses, or the skill of the men, 
were attracted merely by one or the other of the colours, as caprice in- 
clined them. In the time of Justinian, no less than thirty thousand men 
lost their lives at Constantinople, in a tumult raised by a contention 
amongst the partizans of the several colours. Secondly, contests of agility 
and strength ; of which there were five kinds, hence called Pentathlum. 
These were, running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, and throwing the discus 
or quoit. Thirdly, Ludus Trojae, a mock-fight, performed by young 
noblemen on horseback, revived by Julius Caesar, and frequently cele- 
brated by the succeeding emperors. We meet with a description of it 
in the fifth book of the ^Eneid, beginning with the following lines : 

Incedunt pueri, pariterque ante ora parentum 
Frsenatis lucent in equis : quos omnis euntes 
Trinacrise mirata fremit Trojaeque juventus. 

Fourthly, Venatio, which was the fighting of wild beasts with one 
another, or with men called Bestiarii, who were either forced to the 
combat by way of punishment, as the primitive Christians were, or 
fought voluntarily, either from a natural ferocity of disposition, or 
induced by hire. An incredible number of animals of various kinds 
were brought from all quarters, at a prodigious expense, for the enter- 
tainment of the people. Pompey, in his second consulship, exhibited 
at once five hundred lions, which were all dispatched in five days ; also 
eighteen elephants. Fifthly, the representation of a horse and foot 
battle, with that of an encampment or a siege. Sixthly, the represen- 
tation of a sea-fight (Naumachia), which was at first made in the Circus 
Maximus, but afterwards elsewhere. The combatants were usually cap- 
tives or condemned malefactors, who fought to death, unless saved by 
the clemency of the emperor. If any thing unlucky happened at the 
games, they were renewed, and often more than once. 




POMPEY TEE GREAT „ 



JULIUS C^SAR. 33 

lers, and the representation of a sea-fight. In the con- 
flict of gladiators presented in the Forum, Furius Lep- 
tinus, a man of praetorian family, entered the lists as a 
combatant, as did also Ouintus Calpenus, formerly a sen- 
ator, and a pleader of causes. The Pyrrhic dance was 
performed by someyouths, who were sons to persons of 
the first distinction in Asia and Bithynia. In the plays, 
Decimus Laberius, who had been a Roman knight, acted 
in his own piece ; and being presented on the spot with, 
five hundred thousand sesterces, and a gold ring, he went 
from the stage, through the orchestra, and resumed his. 
place in the seats allotted for the equestrian order. Ira 
the Circensian games, the circus being enlarged at each 
end, and a canal sunk round it, several of the young 
nobility drove chariots, drawn, some by four, and others 
by two horses, and likewise rode races on single horses. 
The Trojan game was acted by two distinct companies 
of boys, one differing from the other in age and rank. 
The hunting of wild beasts was presented for five days 
successively ; and on the last- day a battle was fought by 
five hundred foot, twenty elephants, and thirty horse 
on each side. To afford room for this engagement, the 
goals were removed, and in their space two camps were 
pitched, directly opposite to each other. Wrestlers like- 
wise performed for three days successively, in a stadium 
provided for the purpose in the Campus Martius. A 
lake having been dug in the little Codeta, 1 ships of the 
Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, containing two, three, and 
four banks of oars, with a number of men on board, 
afforded an animated representation of a sea-fight. To 
these various diversions there flocked such crowds of 
spectators from all parts, that most of the strangers 

1 A meadow beyond the Tiber, in which an excavation was made, 
supplied with water from the river. 
3 



34 



ETONIUS. 



were obliged to lodge in tents erected in the streets, or 
along the roads near the city. Several in the throng 
were squeezed to death, amongst whom were two sen- 
ators. 

XL. Turning afterwards his attention to the regulation 
of the commonwealth, he corrected the calendar, 1 which 
had for some time become extremely confused, through 
the unwarrantable liberty which the pontiffs had taken in 
the article of intercalation. To such a height had this 
abuse proceeded, that neither the festivals designed for 
the harvest fell in summer, nor those for the vintage in 
autumn. He accommodated the year to the course of 
the sun, ordaining that in future it should consist of 
three hundred and sixty-five days without any intercal- 
ary month ; and that every fourth year an intercalary 
day should be inserted. That the year might thence- 
forth commence regularly with the calends, or first of 
January, he inserted two months between November and 

1 Julius Csesar was assisted by Sosigenes, an Egyptian philosopher, 
in correcting the calendar. For this purpose he introduced an addi- 
tional day every fourth year, making February to consist of twenty-nine 
days instead of twenty-eight, and, of course, the whole year to consist 
of three hundred and sixty-six days. The fourth year was denominated 
Bissextile, or leap year, because the sixth day before the calends, or 
first of March, was reckoned twice. 

The Julian year was introduced throughout the Roman empire, and 
continued in general use till the year 1582. But the true correction 
was not six hours, but five hours, forty-nine minutes ; hence the addi- 
tion was too great by eleven minutes. This small fraction would 
amount in one hundred years to three-fourths of a day, and in a thou- 
sand years to more than seven days. It had, in fact, amounted, since 
the Julian correction, in 1582, to more than seven days. Pope Gre- 
gory XIII., therefore, again reformed the calendar, first bringing for- 
ward the year ten days, by reckoning the 5th of October the 15th, and 
then prescribing the rule which has gradually been adopted throughout 
Christendom, except in Russia, and the Greek church generally. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 35 

December ; so that the year in which this regulation was 
made consisted of fifteen months, including the month of 
intercalation, which, according to the division of time 
then in use, happened that year. 

XLI. He filled up the vacancies in the senate, by ad- 
vancing several plebeians to the rank of patricians, and 
also increased the number of praetors, aediles, quaestors, 
and inferior magistrates ; restoring, at the same time, 
such as had been degraded by the censors, or convicted 
of bribery at elections. The choice of magistrates he so 
divided with the people, that, excepting only the candi- 
dates for the consulship, they nominated one half of them, 
and he the other. The method which he practised in 
those cases was, to recommend such persons as he had 
pitched upon, by bills dispersed through the several 
tribes to this effect : " Caesar the dictator to such a tribe 
(naming it). I recommend to you (naming like- 
wise the persons), that by the favour of your votes they 
may attain to the honours for which they sue." He like- 
wise admitted to offices the sons of those who had been 
proscribed. The trial of causes he restricted to two 
orders of judges, the equestrian and senatorial ; exclud- 
ing the tribunes of the treasury who had before made a 
third class. The revised census of the people he ordered 
to be taken neither in the usual manner or place, but 
street by street, by the principal inhabitants of the sev- 
eral quarters of the city ; and he reduced the number of 
those who received corn at the public cost, from three 
hundred and twenty, to a hundred and fifty, thousand. 
To prevent any tumults on account of the census, he 
ordered that the praetor should every year fill up by lot 
the vacancies occasioned by death, from those who were 
not enrolled for the receipt of corn. 

XLII. Eighty thousand citizens having been distribu- 



36 SUETONIUS. 

ted into foreign colonies, 1 he enacted, in order to stop 
the drain on the population, that no freeman of the city 
above twenty, and under forty, years of age, who was not 
in the military service, should absent himself from Italy 
for more than three years at a time ; that no senator's 
son should go abroad, unless in the retinue of some high 
officer ; and as to those whose pursuit was tending flocks 
and herds, that no less than a third of the number of 
their shepherds free-born should be youths. He likewise 
made all those who practised physic in Rome, and all 
teachers of the liberal arts, free of the city, in order to 
fix them in it, and induce others to settle there. With 
respect to debts, he disappointed the expectation which 
was generally entertained, that they would be totally 
cancelled ; and ordered that the debtors should satisfy 
their creditors, according to the valuation of their estates, 
at the rate at which they were purchased before the com- 
mencement of the civil war ; deducting from the debt 
what had been paid for interest either in money or by 
bonds ; by virtue of which provision about a fourth part 
of the debt was lost. He dissolved all the guilds, except 
such as were of ancient foundation. Crimes were pun- 
ished with greater severity ; and the rich being more 
easily induced to commit them because they were only 
liable to banishment, without the forfeiture of their pro- 
perty, he stripped murderers, as Cicero observes, of their 
whole estates, and other offenders of one half. 

XLIII. He was extremely assiduous and strict in the 
administration of justice. He expelled from the senate 
such members as were convicted of bribery ; and he dis- 
solved the marriage of a man of praetorian rank, who 
had married a lady two days after her divorce from a 

1 Principally Carthage and Corinth. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 37 

former husband, although there was no suspicion that 
they had been guilty of any illicit connection. He im- 
posed duties on the importation of foreign goods. The 
use of litters for travelling, purple robes, and jewels, he 
permitted only to persons of a certain age and station, 
and on particular days. He enforced a rigid execution 
of the sumptuary laws ; placing officers about the mar- 
kets, to seize upon all meats exposed to sale contrary to 
the rules, and bring them to him ; sometimes sending his 
lictors and soldiers to carry away such victuals as had 
escaped the notice of the officers, even when they were 
upon the table. 

XLIV. His thoughts were now fully employed from 
day to day on a variety of great projects for the embel- 
lishment and improvement of the city, as well as for 
guarding and extending the bounds of the empire. In 
the first place, he meditated the construction of a temple 
to Mars, which should exceed in grandeur every thing of 
that kind in the world. For this purpose, he intended to 
fill up the lake on which he had entertained the people 
with the spectacle of a sea-fight. He also projected a 
most spacious theatre adjacent to the Tarpeian mount; 
and also proposed to reduce the civil law to a reasonable 
compass, and out of that immense and undigested mass 
of statutes to extract the best and most necessary parts 
into a few books ; to make as large a collection as pos- 
sible of works in the Greek and Latin languages, for the 
public use ; the province of providing and putting them 
in proper order being assigned to Marcus Varro. He 
intended likewise to drain the Pomptine marshes, to cut 
a channel for the discharge of the waters of the lake 
Fucinus, to form a road from the Upper Sea through 
the ridge of the Appenine to the Tiber; to make a cut 
through the isthmus of Corinth, to reduce the Dacians, 



3 8 SUETONIUS. 

who had over-run Pontus and Thrace, within their pro- 
per limits, and then to make war upon the Parthians, 
through the Lesser Armenia, but not to risk a general 
engagement with them, until he had made some trial of 
their prowess in war. But in the midst of all his under- 
takings and projects, he was carried off by death ; before 
I speak of which, it may not be improper to give an ac- 
count of his person, dress, and manners, together with 
what relates to his pursuits, both civil and military. 

XLV. It is said that he was tall, of a fair complexion, 
round limbed, rather full faced, with eyes black and 
piercing ; and that he enjoyed excellent health, except 
towards the close of his life, when he was subject to 
sudden fainting-fits, and disturbance in his sleep. He 
was likewise twice seized with the falling sickness while 
engaged in active service. He was so nice in the care 
of his person, that he not only kept the hair of his head 
closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved, but even 
caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked 
out by the roots, a practice for which some persons ral- 
lied him. His baldness gave him much uneasiness, hav- 
ing often found himself on that account exposed to the 
jibes of his enemies. He therefore used to bring for- 
ward the hair from the crown of his head ; and of all the 
honours conferred upon him by the senate and people, 
there was none which he either accepted or used with 
greater pleasure, than the right of wearing constantly a 
laurel crown. It is said that he was particular in his 
dress. For he used the Latus Clavus 1 with fringes about 
the wrists, and always had it girded about him, but rather 
loosely. This circumstance gave origin to the expression 

The Latus Clavus was a broad stripe of purple, on the front of the 
toga. Its width distinguished it from that of the knights, who wore it 
narrow. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 39 

of Sylla, who often advised the nobles to beware of " the 
ill-girt boy." 

XLVI. He first inhabited a small house in the Su- 
burra, 1 but after his advancement to the pontificate, he 
occupied a palace belonging to the state in the Via 
Sacra. Many writers say that he liked his residence to 
be elegant, and his entertainments sumptuous ; and that 
he entirely took down a villa near the grove of Aricia, 
which he had built from the foundation and finished at a 
vast expense, because it did not exactly suit his taste, 
althoueh he had at that time but slender means, and was 
in debt ; and that he carried about in his expeditions tes- 
selated and marble slabs for the floor of his tent. 

XLVII. They likewise report that he invaded Britain 
in hopes of finding pearls, 2 the size of which he v/ould 
compare together, and ascertain the weight by poising 
them in his hand ; that he would purchase, at any cost, 
gems, carved works, statues, and pictures, executed by 
the eminent masters of antiquity ; and that he would 
give for young and handy slaves a price so extravagant, 
that he forbad its being entered in the diary of his ex- 
penses. 

XLVIII. We are also told, that in the provinces he 
constantly maintained two tables, one for the officers of 
the army, and the gentry of the country, and the other 
for Romans of the highest rank, and provincials of the 
highest distinction. He was so very exact in the man- 
agement of his domestic affairs, both little and great, 
that he once threw a baker into prison, for serving him 

1 The Suburra lay between the Celian and Esquiline hills. It was 
one of the most frequented quarters of Rome. 

2 Bede, quoting Solinus, we believe, says that excellent pearls were 
found in the British seas, and that they were of all colors, but princi- 
pally white. Eccl. Hist. b. i. c. i. 



40 SUETONIUS. 

with a finer sort of bread than his guests ; and put to 
death a freed-man, who w r as a particular favourite, for 
debauching the lady of a Roman knight, although no 
complaint had been made to him of the affair. 

L. It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to 
women, as well as very expensive in his intrigues with 
them, and that he debauched many ladies of the highest 
quality ; among whom were Posthumia, the wife of Ser- 
vius Sulpicius ; Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius ; Ter- 
tulla, the wife of Marcus Crassus ; and Mucia, the wife 
of Cneius Pompey. For it is certain that the Curios, 
both father and son, and many others, made it a reproach 
to Pompey, " That to gratify his ambition, he married the 
daughter of a man, upon whose account he had divorced 
his wife, after having had three children by her; and 
whom he used, with a deep sigh, to call ^Egisthus." 1 But 
the mistress he most loved, was Servilia, the mother of 
Marcus Brutus, for whom he purchased, in his first con- 
sulship after the commencement of their intrigue, a pearl 
which cost him six millions of sesterces ; and in the civil 
war, besides other presents, assigned to her, for a trifling 
consideration, some valuable farms when they were ex- 
posed to public auction. Many persons expressing their 
surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero wittily re- 
marked, " To let you know the real value of the pur- 
chase, between ourselves, Tertia was deducted:" for 
Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter 
Tertia to Caesar. 2 

1 ^Egisthus, who, like Caesar, was a pontiff, debauched Clytemnestra 
while Agamemnon was engaged in the Trojan war, as Caesar did Mucia, 
the wife of Pompey, while absent in the war against Mithridates. 

2 A double entendre ; Tertia signifying the third [of the value of the 
farm], as well as being the name of the girl, for whose favours the de- 
duction was made. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 41 

LI. That he had intrigues likewise with married wo- 
men in the provinces, appears from this distich, which 
was as much repeated in the Gallic triumph as the 
former : — 

Watch well your wives, ye cits, we bring a blade, 
A bald-pate master of the wenching trade. 

Thy gold was spent on many a Gallic w e ; 

Exhausted now, thou com'st to borrow more. 1 

LII. In the number of his mistresses were also some 
queens ; such as Eunoe, a Moor, the wife of Bogudes, to 
whom and her husband he made, as Naso reports, many 
large presents. But his greatest favourite was Cleopatra, 
with whom he often revelled all night until the dawn of 
day, and would have gone with her through Egypt in 
dalliance, as far as /Ethiopia, in her luxurious yacht, had 
not the army refused to follow him. He afterwards in- 
vited her to Rome, whence he sent her back loaded with 
honours and presents, and gave her permission to call 
by his name a son, who, according to the testimony of 
some Greek historians, resembled Caesar both in person 
and gait. Mark Antony declared in the senate, that 
Caesar had acknowledged the child as his own ; and that 
Caius Matias, Caius Oppius, and the rest of Caesar's 
friends knew it to be true. On which occasion Oppius, 
as if it had been an imputation which he was called 
upon to refute, published a book to shew, " that the 
child which Cleopatra fathered upon Caesar, was not 
his." Helvius Cinna, tribune to the people, admitted 
to several persons the fact, that he had a bill ready 
drawn, which Caesar had ordered him to get enacted in 
his absence, allowing him, with the hope of leaving issue, 

1 Urbani, servate uxores ; mcechum calvum adducimus : 
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hie sumpsisti mutuum. 



42 SUETONIUS. 

to take any wife he chose, and as many of them as he 
pleased ; and to leave no room for doubt of his infamous 
character for unnatural lewdness and adultery, Curio, the 
father, says, in one of his speeches, " He was every wo- 
man's man." 

LIII. It is acknowledged even by his enemies, that in 
regard to wine he was abstemious. A remark is ascribed 
to Marcus Cato, " that Caesar was the only sober man 
amongst all those who were engaged in the design to 
subvert the government." In the matter of diet, Caius 
Oppius informs us, " that he was so indifferent, that when 
a person in whose house he was entertained, had served 
him with stale, instead of fresh, oil, 1 and the rest of the 
company would not touch it, he alone ate very heartily 
of it, that he might not seem to tax the master of the 
house with rusticity or want of attention." 

LIV. But his abstinence did not extend to pecuniary 
advantages, either in his military commands, or civil offi- 
ces; for we have the testimony of some writers, that he 
took money from the proconsul, who was his predecessor 
in Spain, and from the Roman allies in that quarter, for 
the discharge of his debts ; and plundered at the point of 
the sword some towns of the Lusitanians, notwithstanding 
they attempted no resistance, and opened their gates to 
him upon his arrival before them. In Gaul, he rifled the 
chapels and temples of the gods, which were filled with 
rich offerings, and demolished cities oftener for the sake 
of their spoil, than for any ill they had done. By this 
means gold became so plentiful with him, that he ex- 
changed it through Italy and the provinces of the empire 

1 Plutarch tells us that the oil was used in a dish of asparagus. Every 
traveller knows that in those climates oil takes the place of butter as an 
ingredient in cookery, and it needs no experience to fancy what it is 
when rancid. 






JULIUS C^SAR. 43 

for three thousand sesterces the pound. In his first con- 
sulship he purloined from the Capitol three thousand 
pounds' weight of gold, and substituted for it the same 
quantity of gilt brass. He bartered likewise to foreign 
nations and princes, for gold, the titles of allies and kings; 
and squeezed out of Ptolemy alone near six thousand ta- 
lents, in the name of himself and Pompey. He after- 
wards supported the expense of the civil wars, and of his 
triumphs and public spectacles, by the most flagrant ra- 
pine and sacrilege. 

LV. In eloquence and warlike achievements, he equal- 
led at least, if he did not surpass, the greatest of men. 
After his prosecution of Dolabella, he was indisputably 
reckoned one of the most distinguished advocates. Ci- 
cero, in recounting to Brutus the famous orators, declares, 
"that he does not see that Caesar was inferior to any one 
of them ;" and says, " that he had an elegant, splendid, 
noble, and magnificent vein of eloquence." And in a let- 
ter to Cornelius Nepos, he writes of him in the following 
terms : " What ! Of all the orators, who, during the 
whole course of their lives, have done nothing else, which 
can you prefer to him ? Which of them is more pointed 
or terse in his periods, or employs more polished and ele- 
gant language ? " In his youth, he seems to have chosen 
Strabo Caesar for his model ; from whose oration in be- 
half of the Sardinians he has transcribed some passages 
literally into his Divination. In his delivery he is said to 
have had a shrill voice, and his action was animated, but 
not ungraceful. He has left behind him some speeches, 
among which are ranked a few that are not genuine, such 
as that on behalf of Quintus Metellus. These Augustus 
supposes, with reason, to be rather the production of 
blundering short-hand writers, who were not able to keep 
pace with him in the delivery, than publications of his 



44 SUETONIUS. 

own. For I find in some copies that the title is not 
"For Metellus," but "What he wrote to Metellus ; " 
whereas the speech is delivered in the name of Caesar, 
vindicating Metellus and himself from the aspersions cast 
upon them by their common defamers. The speech ad- 
dressed "To his soldiers in Spain," Augustus considers 
likewise as spurious. We meet with two under this title ; 
one made, as is pretended, in the first battle, and the 
other in the last ; at which time, Asinius Pollio says, he 
had not leisure to address the soldiers, on account of the 
suddenness of the enemy's attack. 

LVI. He has likewise left Commentaries of his own 
actions both in the war in Gaul, and in the civil war with 
Pompey ; for the author of the Alexandrian, African, and 
Spanish wars is not known with any certainty. Some 
think they are the productions of Oppius, and some of 
Hirtius ; the latter of whom composed the last book, 
which is imperfect, of the Gallic war. Of Caesar's Com- 
mentaries, Cicero, in his Brutus, speaks .thus : " He wrote 
his Commentaries in a manner deserving of great appro- 
bation : they are plain, precise, and elegant, without any 
affectation of rhetorical ornament. In having thus pre- 
pared materials for others who might be inclined to write 
his history, he may perhaps have encouraged some silly 
creatures to enter upon such a work, who will needs be 
dressing up his actions in all the extravagance of bom- 
bast ; but he has discouraged wise men from ever at- 
tempting the subject." Hirtius delivers his opinion of 
these Commentaries in the following terms : " So great 
is the approbation with which they are universally perused, 
that, instead of rousing, he seems to have precluded, the 
efforts of any future historian. Yet, with respect to this 
work, we have more reason to admire him than others ; 
for they only know how well and correctly he has written, 



JULIUS CiESAR. 45 

but we know, likewise, how easily and quickly he did it." 
Polio Asinius thinks that they were not drawn up with 
much care, or with a due regard to truth ; for he insinu- 
ates that Caesar was too hasty of belief in regard to what 
was performed by others under his orders ; and that, he 
has not given a very faithful account of his own acts, 
either by design, or through defect of memory ; express- 
ing at the same time an opinion that Caesar intended a 
new and more correct edition. He has left behind him 
likewise two books on Analogy, with the same number 
under the title of Anti-Cato, and a poem entitled The 
Itinerary. Of these books, he composed the first two in 
his passage over the Alps, as he was returning to the 
army after making his circuit in Hither-Gaul ; the second 
work about the time of the battle of Munda ; and the last 
during the four-and- twenty days he employed in his jour- 
ney from Rome to Farther-Spain. There are extant 
some letters of his to the senate, written in a manner 
never practised by any before him ; for they are distin- 
guished into pages in the form of a memorandum book : 
whereas the consuls and commanders till then, used con- 
stantly in their letters to continue the line quite across 
the sheet, without any folding or distinction of pages. 
There are extant likewise some letters from him to 
Cicero, and others to his friends, concerning his domestic 
affairs ; in which, if there was occasion for secrecy, he 
wrote in cyphers ; that is, he used the alphabet in such a 
manner, that not a single word could be made out. The 
way to decipher those epistles was to substitute the fourth 
for the first letter, as d for a, and so for the other letters 
respectively. Some things likewise pass under his name, 
said to have been written by him when a boy, or a very 
young man ; as the Encomium of Hercules, a tragedy 
entitled CEdipus, and a collection of Apophthegms ; all 



46 SUETONIUS. 

which Augustus forbad to be published, in a short and 
plain letter to Pompeius Macer, who was employed by 
him in the arrangement of his libraries. 

LVII. He was perfect in the use of arms, an accom- 
plished rider, and able to endure fatigue beyond all be- 
lief. On a march he used to go at the head of his 
troops, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, 
with his head bare in all kinds of weather. He would 
travel post in a light carriage 1 without baggage, at the 
rate of a hundred miles a day ; and if he was stopped 
by floods in the rivers, he swam across, or floated on 
skins inflated with wind, so that he often anticipated 
intelligence of his movements. 2 

LVIII. In his expeditions, it is difficult to say whether 
his caution or his daring was most conspicuous. He 
never marched his army by roads which were exposed 
to ambuscades, without having previously examined the 
nature of the ground by his scouts. Nor did he cross 
over to Britain, before he had carefully examined, in per- 
son, 3 the navigation, the harbours, and the most conve- 
nient point of landing in the island. When intelligence 
was brought to him of the siege of his camp in Germany, 
he made his way to his troops, through the enemy's 
stations, in a Gaulish dress. He crossed the sea from 
Brundisium and Dyrrachium, in the winter, through the 
midst of the enemy's fleets; and the troops, under orders 

1 Meritoria rheda ; a light four-wheeled carriage, apparently hired 
either for the journey or from town to town. They were tolerably 
commodious, for Cicero writes to Atticus, (v. 17.) Hanc epistolam 
dictavi sedens in rheda, cum in castra proficiscerer. 

2 Plutarch informs us that Caesar travelled with such expedition, that 
he reached the Rhone on the eighth day after he left Rome. 

3 Caesar tells us himself that he employed C. Volusenus to recon- 
noitre the coast of Britain, sending him forward in a long ship, with 
orders to return and make his report before the expedition sailed. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 47 

to join him, being slow in their movements, notwithstand- 
ing repeated messages to hurry them, but to no purpose, 
he at last went privately, and alone, aboard a small vessel 
in the night time, with his head muffled up ; nor did he 
make himself known, or suffer the master to put about, 
although the wind blew strong against them, until they 
were ready to sink. 

LIX. He was never deterred from any enterprise, nor 
retarded in the prosecution of it, by superstition. 1 When 
a victim, which he was about to offer in sacrifice, made its 
escape, he did not therefore defer his expedition against 
Scipio and Juba. And happening to fall, upon stepping 
out of the ship, he gave a lucky turn to the omen, by 
exclaiming, " I hold thee fast, Africa." To chide the 
prophecies which were spread abroad, that the name of 
the Scipios was, by the decrees of fate, fortunate and 
invincible in that province, he retained in the camp a 
profligate wretch, of the family of the Cornelii, who, on 
account of his scandalous life, was surnamed Salutio. 

LX. He not only fought pitched battles, but made 
sudden attacks when an opportunity offered ; often at the 
end of a march, and sometimes during the most violent 
storms, when nobody could imagine he would stir. Nor 
was he ever backward in fighting, until towards the end 
of his life. He then was of opinion, that the oftener he 
had been crowned with success, the less he ought to 
expose himself to new hazards ; and that nothing he 
could gain by a victory would compensate for what he 
might lose by a miscarriage. He never defeated the 
enemy without driving them from their camp; and giving 
them no time to rally their forces. When the issue of a 
battle was doubtful, he sent away all the horses, and his 

1 Religione ; that is, the omens being unfavourable. 



43 SUETONIUS. 

own first, that having no means of flight, they might be 
under the greater necessity of standing their ground. 

LXI. He rode a very remarkable horse, with feet al- 
most like those of a man, the hoofs being divided in 
such a manner as to have some resemblance to toes. 
This horse he had bred himself, and the soothsayers 
having interpreted these circumstances into an omen 
that its owner would be master of the world, he brought 
him up with particular care, and broke him in himself, 
as the horse would suffer no one else to mount him. A 
statue of this horse was afterwards erected by Caesar's 
order before the temple of Venus Genitrix. 

LXII. He often rallied his troops, when they were 
giving way, by his personal efforts ; stopping those who 
fled, keeping others in their ranks, and seizing them by 
their throat turned them towards the enemy; although 
numbers were so terrified, that an eagle-bearer, 1 thus 
stopped, made a thrust at him with the spear-head ; and 
another, upon a similar occasion, left the standard in his 
hand. 

LXIII. The following instances of his resolution are 
equally, and even more remarkable. After the battle 
of Pharsalia, having sent his troops before him into Asia, 
as he was passing the straits of the Hellespont in a ferry- 
boat, he met with Lucius Cassius, one of the opposite 
party, with ten ships of war ; and so far from endeavour- 
ing to escape, he went alongside his ship, and calling 
upon him to surrender, Cassius humbly gave him his 
submission. 

LXIV. At Alexandria, in the attack of a bridge, being 
forced by a sudden sally of the enemy into a boat, and 

1 The standard of the Roman legions was an eagle fixed on the head 
of a spear. It was silver, small in size, with expanded wings, and 
clutching a golden thunderbolt in its claws. 




CUS BRUTUS 



JULIUS CJESAR. 49 

several others hurrying in with him, he leaped into the 
sea, and saved himself by swimming to the next ship, 
which lay at the distance of two hundred paces ; holding 
up his left hand out of the water, for fear of wetting 
some papers which he held in it ; and pulling his gen- 
eral's cloak after him with his teeth, lest it should fall 
into the hands of the enemy. 

LXV. He never valued a soldier for his; moral con- 
duct or his means, but for his courage only ; and treated 
his troops with a mixture of severity and indulgence ; 
for he did not always keep a strict hand over them, but 
only when the enemy was near. Then indeed he was so 
strict a disciplinarian, that he would give no notice of a 
march or a battle until the moment of action, in order 
that the troops might hold themselves in readiness for 
any sudden movement ; and he would frequently draw 
them out of the camp without any necessity for it, espe- 
cially in rainy weather, and upon holy-days. Sometimes, 
giving them orders not to lose sight of him, he would 
suddenly depart by day or by night, and lengthen the 
marches in order to tire them out, as they followed him 
at a distance. 

LXVI. When at any time his troops were dispirited by 
reports of the great force of the enemy, he rallied their 
courage, not by denying the truth of what was said, or 
by diminishing the facts, but, on the contrary, by exag- 
gerating every particular. Accordingly, when his troops 
were in great alarm at the expected arrival of king Juba, 
he called them together, and said, " I have to inform you 
that in a very few days the king will be here, with ten 
legions, thirty thousand horse, a hundred thousand light- 
armed foot, and three hundred elephants. Let none of 
you, therefore, presume to make further enquiry, or in- 
dulge in conjectures, but take my word for what I tell 



50 SUETONIUS. 

you, which I have from undoubted intelligence ; other- 
wise I shall put them aboard an old crazy vessel, and 
leave them exposed to the mercy of the winds, to be 
transported to some other country." 

LXVII. He neither noticed all their trangressions, nor 
punished them according to strict rule. But for deserters 
and mutineers he made the most diligent enquiry, and 
their punishment was most severe : other delinquencies 
he would connive at. Sometimes, after a great battle 
ending in victory, he would grant them a relaxation from 
all kinds of duty, and leave them to revel at pleasure ; 
being used to boast, " that his soldiers fought nothing the 
worse for being well oiled." In his speeches, he never 
addressed them by the title of " Soldiers," but by the 
kinder phrase of " Fellow-soldiers;" and kept them in 
such splendid order, that their arms were ornamented 
with silver and gold, not merely for parade, but to render 
the soldiers more resolute to save them in battle, and 
fearful of losing them. He loved his troops to such a 
degree, that when he heard of the defeat of those under 
Titurius, he neither cut his hair nor shaved his beard, 
until he had revenged it upon the enemy; by which 
means he engaged their devoted affection, and raised 
their valour to the highest pitch. 

LXVIII. Upon his entering on the civil war, the centu- 
rions of every legion offered, each of them, to maintain a 
horseman at his own expense, and the whole army agreed 
to serve gratis, without either corn or pay ; those amongst 
them who were rich, charging themselves with the main- 
tenance of the poor. No one of them, during the whole 
course of the war, deserted to the enemy ; and many of 
those who were made prisoners, though they were offered 
their lives, upon condition of bearing arms against him, re- 
fused to accept the terms. They endured want, and other 



JULIUS C^SAR. 51 

hardships, not only when they were besieged themselves, 
but when they besieged others, to such a degree, that Pom- 
pey, when blocked up in the neighbourhood of Dyrra- 
chium, upon seeing a sort of bread made of an herb, which 
they lived upon, said, " I have to do with wild beasts," and 
ordered it immediately to be taken away ; because, if his 
troops should see it, their spirit might be broken by per- 
ceiving the endurance and determined resolution of the 
enemy. With what bravery they fought, one instance 
affords sufficient proof ; which is, that after an unsuccess- 
ful engagement at Dyrrachium, they called for punish- 
ment; insomuch that their general found it more neces- 
sary to comfort than to punish them. In other battles, in 
different quarters, they defeated with ease immense armies 
of the enemy, although they were much inferior to them 
in number. In short, one cohort of the sixth legion held 
out a fort against four legions belonging to Pompey, 
during several hours ; being almost every one of them 
wounded by the vast number of arrows discharged against 
them, and of which there were found within the ramparts 
a hundred and thirty thousand. This is no way surpris- 
ing, when we consider the conduct of some individuals 
amongst them ; such as that of Cassius Scaeva, a cen- 
turion, or Caius Acilius, a common soldier, not to speak 
of others. Scaeva, after having an eye struck out, being 
run through the thigh and the shoulder, and having his 
shield pierced in an hundred and twenty places, main- 
tained obstinately the guard of the gate of a fort, with 
the command of which he was intrusted. Acilius, in the 
sea-fight at Marseilles, having seized a ship of the enemy's 
with his right hand, and that being cut off, in imitation 
of that memorable instance of resolution in Cynaegirus 
amongst the Greeks, boarded the enemy's ship, bearing 
down all before him with the boss of his shield. 



52 SUETONIUS. 

LXIX. They never once mutinied during all the ten 
years of the Gallic war, but were sometimes refractory in 
the course of the civil war. However, they always re- 
turned quickly to their duty, and that not through the 
indulgence, but in submission to the authority, of their 
general ; for he never yielded to them when they were 
insubordinate, but constantly resisted their demands. He 
disbanded the whole ninth legion with ignominy at Pla- 
centia, although Pompey was still in arms, and would not 
receive them again into his service, until they had not only 
made repeated and humble entreaties, but until the ring- 
leaders in the mutiny were punished. 

LXX. When the soldiers of the tenth legion at Rome 
demanded their discharge and rewards for their service, 
with violent threats and no small danger to the city, 
although the war was then raging in Africa, he did not 
hesitate, contrary to the advice of his friends, to meet 
the legion, and disband it. But addressing them by the 
title of " Quirites," instead of " Soldiers," he by this sin- 
gle word so thoroughly brought them round and changed 
their determination, that they immediately cried out they 
were his " soldiers," and followed him to Africa, although 
he had refused their service. He nevertheless punished 
the most mutinous among them, with the loss of a third 
of their share in the plunder, and the land destined for 
them. 

LXXI. In the service of his clients, while yet a young 
man, he evinced great zeal and fidelity. He defended 
the cause of a noble youth, Masintha, against king Hi- 
empsal, so strenuously, that in a scuffle which took place 
upon the occasion, he seized by the beard the son of king 
Juba ; and upon Masintha's being declared tributary to 
Hiempsal, while the friends of the adverse party were 
violently carrying him off, he immediately rescued him 



JULIUS CAESAR. 53 

by force, kept him concealed in his house a long time, 
and when, at the expiration of his praetorship, he went to 
Spain, he took him away in his litter, in the midst of his 
lictors bearing the fasces, and others who had come to 
attend and take leave of him. 

LXXII. He always treated his friends with such kind- 
ness and good-nature, that when Caius Oppius, in travel- 
ling with him through a forest, was suddenly taken ill, he 
resigned to him the only place there was to shelter them 
at night, and lay upon the ground in the open air. When 
he had placed himself at the head of affairs, he advanced 
some of his faithful adherents, though of mean extrac- 
tion, to the highest offices ; and when he was censured 
for this partiality, he openly said, "Had I been assisted 
by robbers and cut-throats in the defense of my honour, 
I should have made them the same recompense." 

LXXIII. The resentment he entertained against any 
one was never so implacable that he did not very wil- 
lingly renounce it when opportunity offered. Although 
Caius Memmius had published some extremely virulent 
speeches against him, and he had answered them with 
equal acrimony, yet he afterwards assisted him with his 
vote and interest, when he stood candidate for the con- 
sulship. When C. Calvus, after publishing some scan- 
dalous epigrams upon him, endeavoured to effect a recon- 
ciliation by the intercession of friends, he wrote to him, 
of his own accord, the first letter. And when Valerius 
Catullus, who had, as he himself observed, fixed such 
a stain upon his character in his verses upon Mamurra 
as never could be obliterated, he begged his pardon, in- 
vited him to supper the same day ; and continued to take 
up his lodging with his father occasionally, as he had 
been accustomed to do. 

LXXIV. His temper was also naturally averse to se- 



54 SUETONIUS. 

verity in retaliation. After he had captured the pirates, 
by whom he had been taken, having sworn that he would 
crucify them, he did so indeed ; but he first ordered their 
throats to be cut. 1 He could never bear the thought of 
doing any harm to Cornelius Phagitas, who had dogged 
him in the night when he was sick and a fugitive, with 
the design of carrying him to Sylla, and from whose 
hands he had escaped with some difficulty by giving him 
a bribe. Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised 
his enemies to poison him, he put to death without tor- 
ture. When he was summoned as a witness against 
Publicus Clodius, his wife Pompeia's gallant, who was 
prosecuted for profanation of religious ceremonies, he 
declared he knew nothing of the affair, although his 
mother Aurelia, and his sister Julia, gave the court an 
exact and full account of the circumstances. And being 
asked why then he had divorced his wife ? " Because," 
he said, " my family should not only be free from guilt, 
but even from the suspicion of it." 

LXXV. Both in his administration and his conduct to- 
wards the vanquished party in the civil war, he showed a 
wonderful moderation and clemency. For while Pompey 
declared that he would consider those as enemies who 
did not take arms in defence of the republic, he desired 
it to be understood, that he should regard those who 
remained neuter as his friends. With regard to all those 
to whom he had, on Pompey's recommendation, given 
any command in the army, he left them at perfect liberty 
to go over to him, if they pleased. When some propo- 
sals were made at Ilerda 2 for a surrender, which gave 
rise to a free communication between the two camps, and 
Afranius and Petreius, upon a sudden change of resolu- 

1 To save them from the torture of a lingering death. 

2 Now Lerida, in Catalonia. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 55 

tion, had put to the sword all Caesar's men who were 
found in the camp, he scorned to imitate the base treach- 
ery which they had practised against himself. On the 
field of Pharsalia, he called out to the soldiers " to spare 
their fellow-citizens," and afterwards gave permission to 
every man in his army to save an enemy. None of them, 
so far as appears, lost their lives but in battle, excepting 
only Afranius, Faustus, and young Lucius Caesar; and it 
is thought that even they were put to death without his 
consent. Afranius and Faustus had borne arms against 
him, after obtaining their pardon ; and Lucius Caesar had 
not only in the most cruel manner destroyed with fire 
and sword his freedmen and slaves, but cut to pieces the 
wild beasts which he had prepared for the entertainment 
of the people. And finally, a little before his death, he 
permitted all whom he had not before pardoned, to re- 
turn into Italy, and to bear offices both civil and military. 
He even replaced the statues of Sylla and Pompey, which 
had been thrown down by the populace. And after this, 
whatever was devised or uttered, he chose rather to 
check than to punish it. Accordingly, having detected 
certain conspiracies and nocturnal assemblies, he went 
no farther than to intimate by a proclamation that he 
knew of them ; and as to those who indulged themselves 
in the liberty of reflecting severely upon him, he only 
warned them in a public speech not to persist in their 
offence. He bore with great moderation a virulent libel 
written against him by Aulus Caecinna, and the abusive 
lampoons of Pitholaiis, most highly reflecting on his rep- 
utation. 

LXXVI. His other words and actions, however, so far 
outweigh all his good qualities, that it is thought he 
abused his power, and was justly cut off. For he not 
only obtained excessive honours, such as the consulship 



56 SUETONIUS. 

every year, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship, 
but also the title of emperor, 1 and the surname of Father 
of his country, 2 besides having his statue amongst the 
kings, 3 and a lofty couch in the theatre. He even suffered 
some honours to be decreed to him, which were unbefit- 
ting the most exalted of mankind : such as a gilded chair 
of state in the senate-house and on his tribunal, a con- 
secrated chariot, and banners in the Circensian proces- 
sion, temples, altars, statues among the gods, a bed of 
state in the temples, a priest, and a college of priests 
dedicated to himself, like those of Pan ; and that one of 
the months should be called by his name. There were, 
indeed, no honours which he did not either assume him- 
self, or grant to others, at his will and pleasure. In his 
third and fourth consulship, he used only the title of the 
office, being content with the power of dictator, which 
was conferred upon him with the consulship ; and in both 
years he substituted other consuls in his room, during the 
three last months ; so that in the intervals he held no as- 
semblies of the people, for the election of magistrates, ex- 
cepting only tribunes and ediles of the people; and ap- 

1 The title of emperor was not new in Roman history; i. It was 
sometimes given by the acclamations of the soldiers to those who com- 
manded them. 2. It was synonymous with conqueror, and the troops 
hailed him by that title after a victory. In both these cases it was 
merely titular, and not permanent, and was generally written after the 
proper name, as Cicero imperator, Leniulo imperatore. 3. It assumed 
a . permanent and royal character first in the person of Julius Caesar, 
and was then generally prefixed to the emperor's name in inscriptions, 
as IMP. CiESAR. divi. &c. 

2 Cicero was the first who received the honour of being called "Pater 
patriae." 

3 Statues were placed in the Capitol of each of the seven kings of 
Rome, to which an eighth was added in honour of Brutus, who ex- 
pelled the last. The statue of Julius Caesar was afterwards raised near 
them. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 57 

pointed officers, under the name of praefects, instead of 
praetors, to administer the affairs of the city during his 
absence. The office of consul having become vacant, by 
the sudden death of one of the consuls the day before the 
calends of January [the ist Jan.], he conferred it on a 
person who requested it of him, for a few hours. Assu- 
ming the same licence, and regardless of the customs of 
his country, he appointed magistrates to hold their offices 
for terms of years. He granted the insignia of the con- 
sular dignity to ten persons of praetorian rank. He ad- 
mitted into the senate some men who had made free of 
the city, and even natives of Gaul, who were semi-barba- 
rians. He likewise appointed to the management of the 
mint, and the public revenue of the state, some servants 
of his own household; and entrusted the command of 
three legions, which he left at Alexandria, to an old cata- 
mite of his, the son of his freed-man Rufinus. 

LXXVII. He was guilty of the same extravagance in 
the language he publicly used, as Titus Ampius informs 
us ; according to whom he said, " The republic is nothing 
but a name, without substance or reality. Sylla was an 
ignorant fellow to abdicate the dictatorship. Men ought 
to consider what is becoming when they talk with me, 
and look upon what I say as a law." To such a pitch of 
arrogance did he proceed, that when a soothsayer an- 
nounced to him the unfavourable omen, that the entrails 
of a victim offered for sacrifice were without a heart, he 
said, "The entrails will be more favourable when I 
please ; and it ought not to be regarded as a prodigy 
that a beast should be found wanting a heart." 

LXXVIII. But what brought upon him the greatest 
odium, and was thought an unpardonable insult, was his 
receiving the whole body of the conscript fathers sitting, 
before the temple of Venus Genitrix, when they waited 



58 SUETONIUS. 

upon him with a number of decrees, conferring on him 
the highest dignities. Some say that, on his attempting 
to rise, he was held down by Cornelius Balbus ; others, 
that he did not attempt to rise at all, but frowned on 
Caius Trebatius, who suggested to him that he should 
stand up to receive the senate. This behaviour appeared 
the more intolerable in him, because, when one of the 
tribunes of the people, Pontius Aquila, would not rise up 
to him, as he passed by the tribunes' seat during his tri- 
umph, he was so much offended, that he cried out, "Well 
then, you tribune, Aquila, oust me from the government." 
And for some days afterwards, he never promised a fa- 
vour to any person, without this proviso, "if Pontus 
Aquila will give me leave." 

LXXIX. To this extraordinary mark of contempt for 
the senate, he added another affront still more outrage- 
ous. For when, after the sacred rites of the Latin festi- 
val, he was returning home, amidst the immoderate and 
unusual acclamations of the people, a man in the crowd 
put a laurel crown, encircled with a white fillet, 1 on one 
of his statues; upon which, the tribunes of the people, 
Epidius Marullus, and Caesetius Flavus ordered the fillet 
to be removed from the crown, and the man to be taken 
to prison. Caesar, being much concerned either that the 
idea of royalty had been suggested to so little purpose, 
or, as was said, that he was thus deprived of the merit of 
refusing it, reprimanded the tribunes very severely, and 
dismissed them from their office. From that day for- 
ward, he was never able to wipe off the scandal of affect- 
ing the name of king, although he replied to the populace 
when they saluted him by that title, "I am Caesar, and no 



1 The white fillet was one of the insignia of royalty. Plutarch, on 
this occasion, uses the expression, diadtj^azi RarrtXtxaj, a royal diadem. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 59 

king." And at the feast of the Lupercalia, 1 when the 
consul Antony placed a crown upon his head in the ros- 
tra several times, he as often put it away, and sent it to 
the Capitol for Jupiter, the Best and the Greatest. A 
report was very current, that he had a design of with- 
drawing to Alexandria or Ilium, whither he proposed to 
transfer the imperial power, to drain Italy by new levies, 
and to leave the government of the city to be administer- 
ed by his friends. To this report it was added, that in 
the next meeting of the senate, Lucius Cotta, one of the 
fifteen, 2 would make a motion, that as there was in the 
Sibylline books a prophecy, that the Parthians would 
never be subdued but by a king, Caesar should have that 
title conferred upon him. 

LXXX. For this reason the conspirators precipitated 
the execution of their design, 3 that they might not be 
obliged to give their assent to the proposal. Instead, 
therefore, of caballing any longer separately, in small 
parties, they now united their counsels; the people them- 
selves being dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, 
both privately and publicly condemning the tyranny un- 
der which they lived, and calling on patriots to assert 
their cause against the usurper. Upon the admission of 
foreigners into the senate, a hand-bill was posted up in 
these words : " A good deed ! let no one shew a new 

1 The Lupercalia was a festival, celebrated in a place called the Lu- 
percal, in the month of February, in honour of Pan. During the solem- 
nity, the Luperci y or priests of that god, ran up and down the street 
naked, with only a girdle of goat's skin round their waist, and thongs 
of the same in their hands ; with which they struck those they met, 
particularly married women, who were thence supposed to be rendered 
prolific. 

2 Persons appointed to inspect and expound the Sibylline books. 

3 a.u.c. 709. 



60 SUETONIUS. 

senator the way to the house." These verses were like- 
wise currently repeated: 

The Gauls he dragged in triumph through the town, 
Caesar has brought into the senate- house, 
And changed their plaids 1 for the patrician gown. 
Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit : iidem in curiam 
Galli braccas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt. 

When Quintus Maximus, who had been his deputy in the 
consulship for the last three months, entered the theatre, 
and the lictor, according to custom, bid the people take 
notice who was coming, they all cried out, "He is no 
consul." After the removal of Caesetius and Marullus 
from their office, they were found to have a great, many 
votes at the next election of consuls. Some one wrote 
under the statue of Lucius Brutus " Would you were 
now alive !" and under the statue of Caesar himself these 
lines : 

Because he drove from Rome the royal race, 
Brutus was first made consul in their place. 
This man, because he put the consuls down, 
Has been rewarded with a royal crown. 
Brutus, quia reges ejecit, consul primus factus est : 
Hie, quia consules ejecit, rex postremo factus est. 

About sixty persons were engaged in the conspiracy 
against him, of whom Caius Cassius, and Marcus and 
Decimus Brutus were the chief. It was at first debated 
amongst them, whether they should attack him in the 
Campus Martius when he was taking the votes of the 
tribes, or some of them should throw him off the bridge, 
whilst others should be ready to stab him upon his fall ; 
or else in the Via Sacra, or at the entrance of the thea- 
tre. But after public notice had been given by proclama- 

1 See before, c. xxii. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 61 

tion for the senate to assemble upon the ides of March 
[15th March], in the senate-house built by Pompey, they 
approved both of the time and place, as most fitting for 
their purpose. 

LXXXI. Caesar had warning given him of his fate by 
indubitable omens. A few months before, when the colo- 
nists settled at Capua, by virtue of the Julian law, were 
demolishing some old sepulchres, in building country- 
houses, and were the more eager at the work, because 
they discovered certain vessels of antique workmanship, 
a tablet of brass was found in a tomb, in which Capys, 
the founder of Capua, was said to have been buried, 
with an inscription in the Greek language to this effect : 
" Whenever the bones of Capys come to be discovered, 
a descendant of lulus will be slain by the hands of his 
kinsmen, and his death revenged by fearful disasters 
throughout Italy." Lest any person should regard this 
anecdote as a fabulous or silly invention, it was circulated 
upon the authority of Caius Balbus, an intimate friend 
of Caesar's. A few days likewise before his death, he 
was informed that the horses, which, upon his crossing 
the Rubicon, he had consecrated, and turned loose to 
graze without a keeper, abstained entirely from eating, 
and shed floods of tears. The soothsayer Spurinna, ob- 
serving certain ominous appearances in a sacrifice which 
he was offering, advised him to beware of some danger, 
which threatened to befall him before the ides of March 
were past. The day before the ides, birds of various 
kinds from a neighbouring grove, pursuing a wren which 
flew into Pompey's senate-house, 1 with a sprig of laurel 

1 This senate-house stood in that part of the Campus Martius which 
is now the Campo di Fiore, and was attached by Pompey, "spoliis 
Orientis Onustus," to the magnificent theatre, which he built a.tj.c. 
698, in his second consulship. His statue, at the foot of which Caesar 



62 SUETONIUS. 

in its beak, tore it in pieces. Also, in the night on which 
the day of his murder dawned, he dreamt at one time 
that he was soaring above the clouds, and, at another, 
that he had joined hands with Jupiter. His wife Calpur- 
nia fancied in her sleep that the pediment of the house 
was falling down, and her husband stabbed on her bosom ; 
immediately upon which the chamber doors flew open. 
On account of these omens, as well as his infirm health, 
he was in some doubt whether he should not remain at 
home, and defer to some other opportunity the business 
which he intended to propose to the senate; but Decimus 
Brutus advising him not to disappoint the senators, who 
were numerously assembled, and waited his coming, he 
was prevailed upon to go, and accordingly set forward 
about the fifth hour. In his way, some person having 
thrust into his hand a paper, warning him against the 
plot, he mixed it with some other documents which he 
held in his left hand, intending to read it at leisure. Vic- 
tim after victim was slain, without any favourable appear- 
ances in the entrails ; but still, disregarding all omens, he 
entered the senate-house, laughing at Spurinna as a false 
prophet, because the ides of March were come, without 
any mischief having befallen him. To which the sooth- 
sayer replied, " They are come, indeed, but not past." 

LXXXII. When he had taken his seat, the conspira- 
tors stood round him, under colour of paying their com- 
pliments ; and immediately Tullius Cimber, who had en- 
gaged to commence the assault, advancing nearer than 
the rest, as if he had some favour to request, Caesar 
made signs that he should defer his petition to some 
other time. Tullius immediately seized him by the toga, 
on both shoulders ; at which Caesar crying out, " Violence 

fell, as Plutarch tells us, was placed in it. We shall find that Augustus 
caused it to be removed. 



JULIUS CiESAR. 63 

is meant!" one of the Cassii wounded him a little below 
the throat. Caesar seized him by the arm, and ran it 
through with his style j 1 and endeavouring to rush for- 
ward, was stopped by another wound. Finding himself 
now attacked on all hands with naked poniards, he wrap- 
ped the toga 2 about his head, and at the same moment 
drew the skirt round his legs with his left hand, that he 
might fall more decently with the lower part of his body 
covered. He was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, 
uttering a groan only, but no cry, at the first wound ; 
although some authors relate, that when Marcus Brutus 
fell upon him, he exclaimed, " What ! art thou, too, one of 
them !" Thou, my son !" 3 The whole assembly instantly 

1 The stylus, or graphium, was an iron pen, broad at one end, with a 
sharp point at the other, used for writing upon waxen tables, the leaves 
or bark of trees, plates of brass, or lead, &c. For writing upon paper 
or parchment, the Romans employed a reed, sharpened and split in the 
point like our pens, called calamus, arundo, or canna. This they dipped 
in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for ink. 

2 It was customary among the ancients, in great extremities to shroud 
the face, in order to conceal any symptoms of horror or alarm which 
the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was drawn round 
the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in falling, as the 
Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and legs. 

3 Caesar's dying apostrophe to Brutus is represented in all the editions 
of Suetonius as uttered in Greek, but with some variations. The words, 
as here translated, are Kai <ju IT Izeivwv ; xat ab rixvov. The Salmasian 
manuscript omits the latter clause. Some commentators suppose that 
the words " my son," were not merely expressive of the difference of 
age, or former familiarity between them, but an avowal that Brutus was 
the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia, mentioned be- 
fore [see p. 40]. But it appears very improbable that Caesar, who had 
never before acknowledged Brutus to be his son, should make so unne- 
cessary an avowal, at the moment of his death. Exclusively of this ob- 
jection, the apostrophe seems too verbose, both for the suddenness and 
urgency of the occasion. But this is not all. Can we suppose that 
Caesar, though a perfect master of Greek, would at such a time have 



64 SUETONIUS. 

dispersing, he lay for some time after he expired, until 
three of his slaves laid the body on a litter, and carried it 
home, with one arm hanging down over the side. Among 
so many wounds, there was none that was mortal, in the 
opinion of the surgeon Antistius, except the second, which 
he received in the breast. The conspirators meant to 
drag his body into the Tiber as soon as they had killed 
him ; to confiscate his estate, and rescind all his enact- 
ments ; but they were deterred by fear of Mark Antony, 
and Lepidus, Caesar's master of the horse, and abandoned 
their intentions. 

LXXXIII. At the instance of Lucius Piso, his father- 
in-law, his will was opened and read in Mark Antony's 
house. He had made it on the ides (13th) of the pre- 
ceding September, at his Lavica villa, and committed it 
to the custody of the chief of the Vestal Virgins. Quin- 
tus Tubero informs us, that in all the wills he had signed, 
from the time of his first consulship to the breaking out 
of the civil war, Cneius Pompey was appointed his heir, 
and that this had been publicly notified to the army. But 
in his last will, he named three heirs, the grandsons of 
his sisters ; namely, Caius Octavius for three fourths of 
his estate, and Lucius Pinarius and Quintus Pedius for 
the remaining fourth. Other heirs [in remainder] were 
named at the close of the will, in which he also adopted 
Caius Octavius, who was to assume his name, into his 
family; and nominated most of those who -were con- 
cerned in his death among the guardians of his son, if he 

expressed himself in that language, rather than in Latin, his familiar 
tongue, and in which he spoke with peculiar elegance? Upon the 
whole, the probability is, that the words uttered by Caesar were, Et tu 
Brute! which, while equally expressive of astonishment with the other 
version, and even of tenderness, are both more natural, and more em- 
phatic. 




ANTONY. 



THE GREAT TRIUMVIR 



JULIUS C^SAR. 65 

should have any ; as well as Decimus Brutus amongst his 
heirs of the second order. He bequeathed to the Roman 
people his gardens near the Tiber, and three hundred 
sesterces each man. 

LXXXIV. Notice of his funeral having been solemnly 
proclaimed, a pile was erected in the Campus Martius, 
near the tomb of his daughter Julia; and before the Ros- 
tra was placed a gilded tabernacle, on the model of the 
temple of Venus Genitrix; 1 within which was an ivory 
bed, covered -with purple and cloth of gold. At the head 
was a trophy, with the [blood-stained] robe in which he 
was slain. It being considered that the whole day would 
not suffice for carrying the funeral oblations in solemn 
procession before the corpse, directions were given for 
every one, without regard to order, to carry them from 
the city into the Campus Martius, by what way they 
pleased. To raise pity and indignation for his murder, 
in the plays acted at the funeral, a passage was sung 
from Pacuvius's tragedy, entitled, " The Trial for Arms :" 

That ever I, unhappy man, should save 

Wretches, who thus have brought me to the grave ! 1 

And some lines also from Attilius's tragedy of " Electra," 
to the same effect. Instead of a funeral panegyric, the 
consul Antony ordered a herald to proclaim to the people 
the decree of the senate, in which they had bestowed 
upon him all honours, divine and human; with the oath 
by which they had engaged themselves for the defence of 
his person; and to these he added only a few words of 
his own. The magistrates and others who had formerly 
filled the highest offices, carried the bier from the Rostra 
into the Forum. While some proposed that the body 

1 Men' me servasse, ut essent qui me perderent ? 
5 



66 SUETONIUS. 

should be burnt in the sanctuary of the temple of Jupiter 
Capitolinus, and others in Pompey's senate-house ; on a 
sudden, two men, with swords by their sides, and spears 
in their hands, set fire to the bier with lighted torches. 
The throng around immediately heaped upon it dry fag- 
gots, the tribunals and benches of the adjoining courts, 
and whatever else came to hand. Then the musicians 
and players stripped off the dresses they wore on the 
present occasion, taken from the wardrobe of his triumph 
at spectacles, rent them, and threw them into the flames. 
The legionaries, also, of his veteran bands, cast in their 
armour, which they had put on in honour of his funeral. 
Most of the ladies did the same by their ornaments, with 
the bullae, 1 and mantles of their children. In this public 
mourning there joined a multitude of foreigners^ express- 
ing their sorrow according to the fashion of their respect- 
ive countries ; but especially the Jews, 2 who for several 
nights together frequented the spot where the body was 
burnt. 

LXXXV. The populace ran from the funeral, with 
torches in their hands, to the houses of Brutus and Cas- 
sius, and were repelled with difficulty. Going in quest of 
Cornelius Cinna, who had in a speech, the day before, re- 
flected severely upon Caesar, and mistaking for him Hel- 
vius Cinna, who happened to fall into their hands, they 
murdered the latter, and carried his head about the city on 
the point of a spear. They afterwards erected in the Fo- 
rum a column of Numidian marble, formed of one stone 
nearly twenty feet high, and inscribed upon it these words, 

1 The Bulla, generally made of gold, was a hollow globe, which boys 
wore upon their breast, pendant from a string or ribbon put round the 
neck. The sons of freedmen and poor citizens used globes of leather. 

2 Josephus frequently mentions the benefits conferred on his country- 
men by Julius Caesar. Antiq. Jud. xiv. 14, 15, 16. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 67 

To the Father of his Country. At this column they 
continued for a long time to offer sacrifices, make vows, 
and decide controversies, in which they swore by Caesar. 

LXXXVI. Some of Caesar's friends entertained a sus- 
picion, that he neither desired nor cared to live any long- 
er, on account of his declining health; and for that reason 
slighted all the omens of religion, and the warnings of his 
friends. Others are of opinion, that thinking himself se- 
cure in the late decree of the senate, and their oaths, he 
dismissed his Spanish guards who attended him with 
drawn swords. Others again suppose, that he chose ra- 
ther to face at once the dangers which threatened him on 
all sides, than to be for ever on the watch against them. 
Some tell us that he used to say, the commonwealth was 
more interested in the safety of his person than himself: 
for that he had for some time been satiated with power 
and glory ; but that the commonwealth, if anything should 
befall him, would have no rest, and, involved in another 
civil war, would be in a worse state than before. 

LXXXVII. This, however, was generally admitted, 
that his death was in many respects such as he would 
have chosen. For, upon reading the account delivered 
by Xenophon, how Cyrus in his last illness gave instruc- 
tions respecting his funeral, Caesar deprecated a linger- 
ing death, and wished that his own might be sudden and 
speedy. And the day before he died, the conversation 
at supper, in the house of Marcus Lepidus, turning upon 
what was the most eligible way of dying, he gave his 
opinion in favour of a death that is sudden and unex- 
pected. 

LXXXVIII. He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, 
and was ranked amongst the Gods, not only by a formal 
decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. Fflr during the 
first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his 



68 SUETONIUS. 

memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising 
always about eleven o'clock ; and it was supposed to be 
the soul of Caesar, now received into heaven : for which 
reason, likewise, he is represented on his statue with a 
star on his brow. The senate-house in which he was 
slain, was ordered to be shut up, 1 and a decree made that 
the ides of March should be called parricidal, and the 
senate should never more assemble on that day. 

LXXXIX. Scarcely any of those who were accessory 
to his murder, survived him more than three years, or 
died a natural death. 2 They were all condemned by the 
senate : some were taken off by one accident, some by 
another. Part of them perished at sea, others fell in 
battle ; and some slew themselves with the same poniard 
with which they had stabbed Ceesar. 3 

1 Appian informs us that it was burnt by the people in their fury, B. 
c. xi. p. 521. 

2 Suetonius particularly refers to the conspirators, who perished at the 
battle of Philippi, or in the three years which intervened. The sur- 
vivors were included in the reconciliation of Augustus, Antony, and 
Pompey, a.u.c. 715. 

3 Suetonius alludes to Brutus and Cassius, of whom this is related by 
Plutarch and Dio. 



JULIUS CAESAR. 69 

1 The termination of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey forms 
a new epoch in the Roman History, at which a Republic, which had 
subsisted with unrivalled glory during a period of about four hundred 
and sixty years, relapsed into a state of despotism, whence it never 
more could emerge. So sudden a transition from prosperity to the 
ruin of public freedom, without the intervention of any foreign enemy, 
excites a reasonable conjecture, that the constitution in which it could 
take place, however vigorous in appearance, must have lost that sound- 
ness of political health which had enabled it to endure through so 
many ages. A short view of its preceding state, and of that in which 
it was at the time of the revolution now mentioned, will best ascertain 
the foundation of such a conjecture. 

Though the Romans, upon the expulsion of Tarquin, made an essen- 
tial change in the political form of the state, they did not carry their 
detestation of regal authority «o far as to abolish the religious institu- 
tions of Numa Pompilius, the second of their kings, according to which, 
the priesthood, with all the influence annexed to that order, was placed 
in the hands of the aristocracy. By this wise policy a restraint was put 
upon the fickleness and violence of the people in matters of govern- 
ment, and a decided superiority given to the Senate both in the delib- 
erative and executive parts of administration. This advantage was 
afterwards indeed diminished by the creation of Tribunes of the people ; 
a set of men whose ambition often embroiled the Republic in civil dis- 
sensions, and who at last abused their authority to such a degree, that 
they became instruments of aggrandizement to any leading men in the 
state who could purchase their friendship. In general, however, the 
majority of the Tribunes being actuated by views which comprehended 
the interests of the multitude, rather than those of individuals, they 
did not so much endanger the liberty, as they interrupted the tranquil- 
lity, of the public ; and when the occasional commotions subsided, there 
remained no permanent ground for the establishment of personal usur- 
pation. 

In every government, an object of the last importance to the peace 
and welfare of society is the morals of the people ; and in proportion 
as a community is enlarged by propagation, or the accession of a mul- 
titude of new members, a more strict attention is requisite to guard 
against that dissolution of manners to which a crowded and extensive 

1 For observations on Dr. Thomson's Essays appended to Suetonius's 
History of Julias Caesar, and the succeeding Emperors, see the Preface 
to this volume. 



7© REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

capital has a natural tendency. Of this the Romans became sensible 
in the growing state of the Republic. In the year of the City 312, 
two magistrates were first created for taking an account of the number 
of the people, and the value of their estates ; and soon after, they were 
invested with the authority not only of inspecting the morals of indi- 
viduals, but of inflicting public censure for any licentiousness of con- 
duct, or violation of decency. Thus both the civil and religious insti- 
tutions concurred to restrain the people within the bounds of good 
order and obedience to the laws ; at the same time that the frugal life 
of the ancient Romans proved a strong security against those vices 
which operate most effectually towards sapping the foundations of a 
state. 

But in the time of Julius Caesar the barriers of public liberty were 
become too weak to restrain the audacious efforts of ambitious and 
desperate men. The veneration for the constitution, usually a powerful 
check to treasonable designs, had been lately violated by the usurpa- 
tions of Marius and Sylla. The salutary terrors of religion no longer 
predominated over the consciences of men. The shame of public cen- 
sure was extinguished in general depravity. An eminent historian, who 
lived at that time, informs us, that venality universally prevailed amongst 
the Romans; and a writer who flourished soon after, observes, that 
luxury and dissipation had encumbered almost all so much with debt, 
that they beheld with a degree of complacency the prospect of civil 
war and confusion. 

The extreme degree of profligacy at which the Romans were now 
arrived is in nothing more evident, than that this age gave birth to the 
most horrible conspiracy which occurs in the annals of human kind, viz. 
that of Catiline. This was not the project of a few desperate and aban- 
doned individuals, but of a number of men of the most illustrious 
rank in the state ; and it appears beyond doubt, that Julius Caesar was 
accessory to the design, which was no less than to extirpate the Senate, 
divide amongst themselves both the public and private treasures, and 
set Rome on fire. The causes which prompted to this tremendous pro- 
ject, it is generally admitted, were luxury, prodigality, irreligion, a 
total corruption of manners, and above all, as the immediate cause, the 
pressing necessity in which the conspirators were involved by their 
extreme dissipation. 

The enormous debt in which Caesar himself was early involved, coun- 
tenances an opinion that his anxiety to procure the province of Gaul 
proceeded chiefly from this cause. But during nine years in which he 
held that province, he acquired such riches as must have rendered him, 



JULIUS C^SAR. 71 

without competition, the most opulent person in the state. If nothing 
more, therefore, than a splendid establishment had been the object of 
his pursuit, he had attained to the summit of his wishes. But when we 
find him persevering in a plan of aggrandizement beyond this period 
of his fortunes, we can ascribe his conduct to no other motive than that 
of outrageous ambition. He projected the building of a new Forum 
at Rome, for the ground only of which he was to pay $4,000,000; 
he raised legions in Gaul at his own charges ; he promised such enter- 
tainments to the people as had never been known at Rome from the 
foundation of the city. All these circumstances evince some latent 
design of procuring such a popularity as might give him an uncon- 
trolled influence in the management of public affairs. Pompey, we are 
told, was wont to to say, that Caesar not being able, with all his riches, 
to fulfil the promises which he had made, wished to throw everything 
into confusion. There may have been some foundation for this re- 
mark : but the opinion of Cicero is more probable, that Caesar's mind 
was seduced with the temptations of chimerical glory. It is observable 
that neither Cicero nor Pompey intimates any suspicion that Caesar was 
apprehensive of being impeached for his conduct, had he returned to 
Rome in a private station. Yet, that there was reason for such an ap- 
prehension, the positive declaration of L. Domitius leaves little room 
to doubt : especially when we consider the number of enemies that 
Caesar had in the Senate, and the coolness of his former friend Pompey 
ever after the death of Julia. The proposed impeachment was founded 
upon a notorious charge of prosecuting measures destructive of the 
interests of the commonwealth, and tending ultimately to an object 
incompatible with public freedom. Indeed, considering the extreme 
corruption which prevailed amongst the Romans at this time, it is more 
than probable that Caesar would have been acquitted of the charge, 
but at such an expense as must have stripped him of all his riches, and 
placed him again in a situation ready to attempt a disturbance of the 
public tranquillity. For it is said, that he purchased the friendship of 
Curio, at the commencement of the civil war, with a bribe little short 
of half a million sterling. 

Whatever Caesar's private motive may have been for taking arms 
against his country, he embarked in an enterprise of a nature the most 
dangerous : and had Pompey conducted himself in any degree suita- 
ble to the reputation which he had formerly acquired, the contest would 
in all probability have terminated in favour of public freedom. But 
by dilatory measures in the beginning, by imprudently withdrawing 
his army from Italy into a distant province, and by not pursuing the 



72 REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. 

advantage he had gained by the vigorous repulse of Caesar's troops in 
their attack upon his camp, this commander lost every opportunity of 
extinguishing a war which was to determine the fate, and even the 
existence, of the Republic. It was accordingly determined on the 
plains of Pharsalia, where Caesar obtained a victory which was not more 
decisive than unexpected. He was now no longer amenable either to 
the tribunal of the Senate or the power of the laws, but triumphed at 
once over his enemies and the constitution of his country. 

It is to the honour of Caesar, that when he had obtained the supreme 
power, he exercised it with a degree of moderation beyond what was 
generally expected by those who had fought on the side of the Repub- 
lic. Of his private life either before or after this period, little is trans- 
mitted in history. Henceforth, however, he seems to have lived chiefly 
at Rome, near which he had a small villa, upon an eminence, com- 
manding a beautiful prospect. His time was almost entirely occupied 
with public affairs, in the management of which, though he employed 
many agents, he appears to have had none in the character of actual 
minister. He was in general easy of access: but Cicero, in. a letter to 
a friend, complains of having been treated with the indignity of waiting 
a considerable time amongst a crowd in an anti-chamber, before he could 
have an audience. The elevation of Caesar placed him not above dis- 
charging reciprocally the social duties in the intercourse of life. He 
returned the visits of those who waited upon him, and would sup at 
their houses. At table, and in the use of wine, he was habitually tem- 
perate. Upon the whole, he added nothing to his own happiness by all 
the dangers, the fatigues, and the perpetual anxiety which he had incurred 
in the pursuit of unlimited power. His health was greatly impaired : 
his former cheerfulness of temper, though not his magnanimity, appears 
to have forsaken him ; and we behold in his fate a memorable example 
of illustrious talents rendered, by inordinate ambition, destructive to 
himself, and" irretrievably pernicious to his country. 




P-DUjardin.EWO 



THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS 



.,., , 



D. OCTAVIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 

I. That the family of the Octavii was of the first dis- 
tinction in Velitrae, 1 is rendered evident by many circum- 
stances. For in the most frequented part of the town, 
there was, not long since, a street named the Octavian ; 
and an altar was to be seen, consecrated to one Octavius, 
who being chosen general in a war with some neighbour- 
ing people, the enemy making a sudden attack, while he 
was sacrificing to Mars, he immediately snatched the en- 
trails of the victim from off the fire, and offered them half 
raw upon the altar ; after which, marching out to battle, 
he returned victorious. This incident gave rise to a law, 
by which it was enacted, that in all future times the en- 
trails should be offered to Mars in the same manner; and 
the rest of the victim be carried to the Octavii. 

II. This family, as well as several in Rome, was admitted 
into the senate by Tarquinius Priscus, and soon afterwards 
placed by Servius Tullius among the patricians; but in 
process of time it transferred itself to the plebeian order, 
and, after the lapse of a long interval, was restored by 
Julius Caesar to the rank of patricians. The first person 
of the family raised by the suffrages of the people to the 
magistracy, was Caius Rufus. He obtained the qusestor- 
ship, and had two sons, Cneiusand Caius; from whom are 

1 A town in the ancient Volscian territory, now called Veletri. It 
stands on the verge of the Pontine Marshes, on the road to Naples. 

73 



74 SUETONIUS. 

• 

descended the two branches of the Octavian family, which 
have had very different fortunes. For Cneius, and his de- 
scendants in uninterrupted succession, held all the highest 
offices of the state; whilst Caius and his posterity, whether 
from their circumstances or their choice, remained in the 
equestrian order until the father of Augustus. The great- 
grandfather of Augustus served as a military tribune in the 
second Punic war in Sicily, under the command of ^Emi- 
lius Pappus. His grandfather contented himself with 
bearing the public offices of his own municipality, and 
grew old in the tranquil enjoyment of an ample patrimo- 
ny. Such is the account given by different authors. Au- 
gustus himself, however, tells us nothing more than that he 
was descended of an equestrian family, both ancient and 
rich, of which his father was the first who obtained the 
rank of senator. Mark Antony upbraidingly tells him 
that his great-grandfather was a freedman of the territory 
of Thurium, 1 and a rope-maker, and his grandfather a 
usurer. This is all the information I have any where met 
with, respecting the ancestors of Augustus, by the father's 
side. 

III. His father Caius Octavius was, from his earliest 
years, a person both of opulence and distinction : for which 
reason I am surprised at those who say that he was a mo- 
ney-dealer, 2 and was employed in scattering bribes, and 
canvassing for the candidates at elections, in the Campus 
Martius. For being bred up in all the affluence of a 
great estate, he attained with ease to honourable posts, and 

1 Thorium was a territory in Magna Grcecia, on the coast, near Ta- 
rentum. 

2 Argentarius; a banker, one who dealt in exchanging money, as 
well as lent his own funds at interest to borrowers. As a class, they 
possessed great wealth, and were persons of consideration in Rome at 
this period. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 75 

discharged the duties of them with much distinction. 
After his praetorship, he obtained by lot the province of 
Macedonia; in his way to which he cut off some banditti, 
the relics of the armies of Spartacus and Catiline, who had 
possessed themselves of the territory of Thurium ; having 
received from the senate an extraordinary commission for 
that purpose. In his government of the province, he con- 
ducted himself with equal justice and resolution; for he 
defeated the Bessians and Thracians in a great battle, and 
treated the allies of the republic in such a manner, that 
there are extant letters from M. Tullius Cicero, in which 
he advises and exhorts his brother Quintus, who then held 
the proconsulship of Asia with no great reputation, to im- 
itate the example of his neighbour Octavius, in gaining 
the affections of the allies of Rome. 

IV. After quitting Macedonia, before he could declare 
himself a candidate for the consulship, he died suddenly, 
leaving behind him a daughter, the elder Octavia, by An- 
charia; and another daughter, Octavia the younger, as 
well as Augustus, by Atia, who was the daughter of Mar- 
cus Atius Balbus, and Julia, sister to Caius Julius Caesar. 
Balbus was, by the father's side, of a family who were 
natives of Aricia, 1 and many of whom had been in the 
senate. By the mother's side he was nearly related to 
Pompey the Great; and after he had borne the office of 
praetor, was one of the twenty commissioners appointed 
by the Julian law to divide the land in Campania among 
the people. But Mark Antony, treating with contempt 
Augustus's descent even by the mother's side, says that 
his great grand-father was of African descent, and at one 
time kept a perfumer's shop, and at another, a bake-house, 
in Aricia. And Cassius of Parma, in a letter, taxes Au- 

1 Now Laricia, or Riccia, a town of the Campagna di Roma, on the 
Appian Way, about ten miles from Rome. 



76 SUETONIUS. 

gustus with being the son not only of a baker, but a 
usurer. These are his words: " Thou art a lump of thy 
mother's meal, which a money-changer of Nerulum taking 
from the newest bake-house of Aricia, kneaded into some 
shape, with his hands all discoloured by the fingering of 
money." 

V. Augustus was born in the consulship of Marcus 
Tullius Cicero and Caius Antonius, 1 upon the ninth of 
the calends of October [the 23rd September], a little 
before sunrise., in the quarter of the Palatine Hill, 2 and 
the street called The Ox-Heads, 3 where now stands a 
chapel dedicated to him, and built a little after his death. 
For, as it is recorded in the proceedings of the senate, 
when Caius Laetorius, a young man of a patrician family, 
in pleading before the senators for a lighter sentence, 
upon his being convicted of adultery, alleged, besides his 
youth and quality, that he was the possessor, and as it 
were the guardian, of the ground which the Divine Au- 
gustus first touched upon his coming into the world ; and 
entreated that he might find favour, for the sake of that 
deity, who was in a peculiar manner his ; an act of the 
senate was passed, for the consecration of that part of 
his house in which Augustus was born. 

1 a.u.c 691. a.c. (before Christ) 61. 

2 The Palatine hill was not only the first seat of the colony of Romu- 
Jus, but gave its name to the first and principal of the four regions into 
which the city was divided, from the time of Servius Tullius, the sixth 
king of Rome, to that of Augustus ; the others being the Suburra, Es- 
quilina, and Collina. 

3 There were seven streets or quarters in the Palatine region, one of 
which was called "Ad Capita Bubula," either from the butchers' stalls 
at which ox-heads are hung up for sale, or from their being sculptured 
on some edifice. Thus the remains of a fortification near the tomb of 
Cecilia Metella are now called Capo di Bove, from the arms of the 
Gaetani family over the gate. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 77 

VI. His nursery is shewn to this day, in a villa belong- 
ing to the family, in the suburbs of Velitrae ; being a very 
small place, and much like a pantry. An opinion pre- 
vails in the neighbourhood, that he was also born there. 
Into this place no person presumes to enter, unless upon 
necessity, and with great devotion, from a belief, for a 
long time prevalent, that such as rashly enter it are seized 
with great horror and consternation, which a short while 
since was confirmed by a remarkable incident. For when 
a new inhabitant of the house had, either by mere chance, 
or to try the truth of the report, taken up his lodging in 
that apartment, in the course of the night, a few hours 
afterwards, he was thrown out by some sudden violence, 
he knew not how, and was found in a state of stupefac- 
tion, with the coverlid of his bed, before the door of the 
chamber. 

VII. While he was yet an infant, the surname of Thu- 
rinus was given him, in memory of the birth-place of his 
family, or because, soon after he was born, his father Oc- 
tavius had been successful against the fugitive slaves, in 
the country near Thurium. That he was surnamed Thu- 
rinus, I can affirm upon good foundation, for when a boy, 
I had a small bronze statue of him, with that name upon 
it in iron letters, nearly effaced by age, which I presented 
to the emperor, 1 by whom it is now revered amongst the 
other tutelary deities in his chamber. He is also often 
called Thurinus contemptuously, by Mark Antony in his 
letters ; to which he makes only this reply : " I am sur- 
prised that my former name should be made a subject of 
reproach." He afterwards assumed the name of Caius 
Caesar, and then of Augustus ; the former in compliance 
with the will of his great-uncle, and the latter upon a mo- 

1 Adrian, to whom Suetonius was secretary. 



78 SUETONIUS. 

tion of Munatius Plancus in the senate. For when some 
proposed to confer upon him the name of Romulus, as 
being, in a manner, a second founder of the city, it was 
resolved that he should rather be called Augustus, a sur- 
name not only new, but of more dignity, because places 
devoted to religion, and those in which anything is conse- 
crated by augury, are denominated august, either from 
the word auctus y signifying augmentation, or ab avium 
gestu, gustuve, from the flight and feeding of birds ; as 
appears from this verse of Ennius : 

When glorious Rome by august augury was built. 1 

VIII. He lost his father when he was only four years 
of age; and, in his twelfth year, pronounced a funeral 
oration in praise of his grand-mother Julia. Four years 
afterwards, having assumed the robe of manhood, he was 
honoured with several military rewards by Caesar in his 
African triumph, although he took no part in the war, on 
account of his youth. Upon his uncle's expedition to 
Spain against the sons of Pompey, he was followed by 
his nephew, although he was scarcely recovered from a 
dangerous sickness ; and after being shipwrecked at sea, 
and travelling with very few attendants through roads 
that were infested with the enemy, he at last came up 
with him. This activity gave great satisfaction to his 
uncle, who soon conceived an increasing affection for 
him, on account of such indications of character. After 
the subjugation of Spain, while Caesar was meditating an 
expedition against the Dacians and Parthians, he was sent 
before him to Apollonia, where he applied himself to his 
studies ; until receiving intelligence that his uncle was 
murdered, and that he was appointed his heir, he hesi- 

1 Augusto augurio postquam inclyta condita Roma est. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 79 

tated for some time whether he should call to his aid the 
legions stationed in the neighbourhood ; but he aban- 
doned the design as rash and premature. However, 
returning to Rome, he took possession of his inheritance, 
although his mother was apprehensive that such a mea- 
sure might be attended with danger, and his step-father, 
Marcius Philippus, a man of consular rank, very earnestly 
dissuaded him from it. From this time, collecting to- 
gether a strong military force, he first held the govern- 
ment in conjunction with Mark Antony and Marcus Le- 
pidus, then with Antony only, for nearly twelve years, and 
at last in his own hands during a period of four and forty. 

IX. Having thus given a very short summary of his 
life, I shall prosecute the several parts of it, not in order 
of time, but arranging his acts into distinct classes, for 
the sake of perspicuity. He was engaged in five civil 
wars, namely, those of Modena, Philippi, Perugia, Sicily, 
and Actium ; the first and last of which were against 
Antony, and the second against Brutus and Cassius ; the 
third against Lucius Antonius, the triumvir's brother, and 
the fourth against Sextus Pompeius, the son of Cneius 
Pompeius. 

X. The motive which gave rise to all these wars was 
the opinion he entertained that both his honour and in- 
terest were concerned in revenging the murder of his 
uncle, and maintaining the state of affairs he had esta- 
blished. Immediately after his return from Apollonia, he 
formed the design of taking forcible and unexpected mea- 
sures against Brutus and Cassius ; but they having fore- 
seen the danger and made their escape, he resolved to 
proceed against them by an appeal to the laws in their 
absence, and impeach them for the murder. In the mean 
time, those whose province it was to prepare the sports 
in honour of Caesar's last victory in the civil war, not dar- 



8o SUETONIUS. 

ing to do it, he undertook it himself. And that he might 
carry into effect his other designs with greater authority, 
he declared himself a candidate in the room of a tribune 
of the people who happened to die at that time, although 
he was of a patrician family, and had not yet been in the 
senate. But the consul, Mark Antony, from whom he 
had expected the greatest assistance, opposing him in his 
suit, and even refusing to do him so much as common jus- 
tice, unless gratified with a large bribe, he went over to 
the party of the nobles, to whom he perceived Sylla to 
be odious, chiefly for endeavouring to drive Decius Bru- 
tus, whom he besieged in the town of Modena, out of the 
province, which had been given him by Caesar, and con- 
firmed to him by the senate. At the instigation of persons 
about him, he engaged some ruffians to murder his an- 
tagonist ; but the plot being discovered, and dreading a 
similar attempt upon himself, he gained over Caesar's 
veteran soldiers, by distributing among them all the 
money he could collect. Being now commissioned by 
the senate to command the troops he had gathered, with 
the rank of praetor, and in conjunction with Hirtius and 
Pansa, who had accepted the consulship, to carry assist- 
ance to Decius Brutus, he put an end to the war by two 
battles in three months. Antony writes, that in the former 
of these he ran away, and in two days afterwards made 
his appearance without his general's cloak and his horse.. 
In the last battle, however, it is certain that he performed 
the part not only of a general, but a soldier ; for, in the 
heat of the battle, when the standard-bearer of his legion 
was severely wounded, he took the eagle upon his shoul- 
ders, and carried it a long time. 

XI. In this war, 1 Hirtius being slain in battle, and Pan- 
sa dying a short time afterwards of a wound, a report 

1 A. U. C. 711. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 81 

was circulated that they both were killed through his 
means, in order that, when Antony fled, the republic hav- 
ing lost its consuls, he might have the victorious armies 
entirely at his own command. The death of Pansa 
was so fully believed to have been caused by undue 
means, that Glyco, his surgeon, was placed in custody, 
on a suspicion of having poisoned his wound. And 
to this, Aquilius Niger adds, that he killed Hirtius, the 
other consul, in the confusion of the battle, with his own 
hands. 

XII. But upon intelligence that Antony, after his de- 
feat, had been received by Marcus Lepidus, and that the 
rest of the generals and armies had all declared for the 
senate, he, without any hesitation, deserted from the party 
of the nobles ; alleging as an excuse for his conduct, the 
actions and sayings of several amongst them; for some 
said, "he was a mere boy," and others threw out, "that he 
ought to be promoted to honours, and cut off," to avoid 
the making any suitable acknowledgment either to him or 
the veteran legions. And the more to testify his regret 
for having before attached himself to the other faction, 
he fined the Nursini in a large sum of money, which they 
were unable to pay, and then expelled them from the 
town, for having inscribed upon a monument, erected at 
the public charge to their countrymen who were slain in 
the battle of Modena, " That they fell in the cause of 
liberty." 

XIII. Having entered into a confederacy with Antony 
and Lepidus, he brought the, war at Philippi to an end in 
two battles, although he was at that time weak, and suffer- 
ing from sickness. 1 In the first battle he was driven from 
his camp, and with some difficulty made his escape to the 
wing of the army commanded by Antony. And now in- 

6 * a. u. c. 712. 



82 SUETONIUS. 

toxicated with success, he sent the head of Brutus 1 to be 
cast at the foot of Caesar's statue, and treated the most 
illustrious of the prisoners not only with cruelty, but with 
abusive language; insomuch that he is said to have an- 
swered one of them who humbly intreated that at least 
he might not remain unburied, " That will be in the pow- 
er of the birds." Two others, father and son, who begged 
for their lives, he ordered to cast lots which of them 
should live, or settle it between themselves by the sword; 
and was a spectator of both their deaths: for the father 
offering his life to save his son, and being accordingly ex- 
ecuted, the son likewise killed himself upon the spot. 
On this account, the rest of the prisoners, and amongst 
them Marcus Favonius, Cato's rival, being led up in fet- 
ters, after they had saluted Antony, the general, with 
much respect, reviled Octavius in the foulest language. 
After this victory, dividing between them the offices of 
the state, Mark Antony 2 undertook to restore order in 
the east, while Caesar conducted the veteran soldiers back 
to Italy, and settled them in colonies on lands belonging^ 
to the municipalities. But he had the misfortune to 
please neither the soldiers nor the owners of the lands ; 
one party complaining of the injustice done them, in 
being violently ejected from their possessions, and the 
other, that they were not rewarded according to their 
merit. 3 

XIV. At this time he obliged Lucius Antony, who, pre- 
suming upon his own authority as consul, and his broth- 

1 After being defeated in the second engagement, Brutus retired to a 
hill, and slew himself in the night. 

2 The triumvir. There were three distinguished brothers of the 
name of Antony ; Mark, the consul ; Caius, who was praetor ; and 
Lucius, a tribune of the people. 

3 Virgil was one of the fugitives, having narrowly escaped being 
killed by the centurion Ario ; and being ejected from his farm. Eclog. i . 



OdESAR AUGUSTUS. 83 

er's power, was raising new commotions, to fly to Peru- 
gia, and forced him, by famine, to surrender at last, al- 
though not without having been exposed to great hazards, 
both before the war and during its continuance. For a 
common soldier having got into the seats of the eques- 
trian order in the theatre, at the public spectacles, Caesar 
ordered him to be removed by an officer; and a rumour 
being thence spread by his enemies, that he had put the 
man to death by torture, the soldiers flocked together so 
much enraged, that he narrowly escaped with his life. 
The only thing that saved him, was the sudden appear- 
ance of the man, safe and sound, no violence having been 
offered him. And whilst he was sacrificing under the 
walls of Perugia, he nearly fell into the hands of a body 
of gladiators, who sallied out of the town. 

XV. After the taking of Perugia, 1 he sentenced a great 
number of the prisoners to death, making only one reply 
to all who implored pardon, or endeavoured to excuse 
themselves, " You must die." Some authors write, that 
three hundred of the two orders, selected from the rest, 
were slaughtered, like victims, before an altar raised to 
Julius Caesar, upon the ides of March [15th April]. 2 Nay, 
there are some who relate, that he entered upon the war 
with no other view, than that his secret enemies, and 
those whom fear more than affection kept quiet, might 
be detected, by declaring themselves, now they had an 
opportunity, with Lucius Antony at their head ; and that 
having defeated them, and confiscated their estates, he 
might be enabled to fulfil his promises to the veteran 
soldiers. 

XVI. He soon commenced the Sicilian war, but it was 
protracted by various delays during a long period ; 3 at 

1 A.U.C. 714. 
2 The anniversary of Julius Caesar's death. 3 a.u.c. 712 — 718. 



84 SUETONIUS. 

one time for the purpose of repairing his fleets, which he 
lost twice by storm, even in the summer; at another, 
while patching up a peace, to which he was forced by the 
clamours of the people, in consequence of a famine occa- 
sioned by Pompey's cutting off the supply of corn by sea. 
But at last, having built a new fleet, and obtained twenty 
thousand manumitted slaves, 1 who were given him for 
the oar, he formed the Julian harbour at Baiae, by letting 
the sea into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes ; and having 
exercised his forces there during the whole winter, he 
defeated Pompey betwixt Mylse and Naulochus ; although 
just as the engagement commenced, he suddenly fell into 
such a profound sleep, that his friends were obliged to 
wake him to give the signal. This, I suppose, gave occa- 
sion for Antony's reproach : " You were not able to take 
a clear view of the fleet, when drawn up in line of battle, 
but lay stupidly upon your back, gazing at the sky ; nor 
did you get up and let your men see you, until Marcus 
Agrippa had forced the enemies' ships to sheer off." 
Others imputed to him both a saying and an action 
which were indefensible ; for, upon the loss of his fleets 
by storm, he is reported to have said : " I will conquer 
in spite of Neptune ;" and at the next Circensian games, 
he would not suffer the statue of that God to be carried 
in procession as usual. Indeed he scarcely ever ran more 
or greater risks in any of his wars than in this. Having 
transported part of his army to Sicily, and being on his 
return for the rest, he was unexpectedly attacked by De- 
mochares and Apollophanes, Pompey's admirals, from 

1 The Romans employed slaves in their wars only in cases of great 
emergency, and with much reluctance. After the great slaughter at the 
battle of Cannse, eight thousand were bought and armed by the repub- 
lic. Augustus was the first who manumitted them, and employed them 
as rowers in his gallies. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 85 

whom he escaped with great difficulty, and with one ship 
only. Likewise, as he was travelling on foot through the 
Locrian territory to Rhegium, seeing two of Pompey's 
vessels passing by that coast, and supposing them to be 
his own, he went down to the shore, and was very nearly 
taken prisoner. On this occasion, as he was making his 
escape by some by-ways, a slave belonging to TEmilius 
Paulus, who accompanied him, owing him a grudge for 
the proscription of Paulus, the father of ^Emilius, and 
thinking he had now an opportunity of revenging it, 
attempted to assassinate him. After the defeat of Pom- 
pey, one of his colleagues, 1 Marcus Lepidus, whom he 
had summoned to his aid from Africa, affecting great 
superiority, because he was at the head of twenty legions, 
and claiming for himself the principal management of 
affairs in a threatening manner, he divested him of his 
command, but, upon his humble submission, granted him 
his life, but banished him for life to Circeii. 

XVII. The alliance between him and Antony, which 
had always been precarious, often interrupted, and ill 
cemented by repeated reconciliations, he at last entirely 
dissolved. 2 And to make it known to the world how 
far Antony had degenerated from patriotic feelings, he 
caused a will of his, which had been left at Rome, and 
in which he had nominated Cleopatra's children, amongst 
others, as his heirs, to be opened and read in an assem- 
bly of the people. Yet upon his being declared an en- 
emy, he sent to him all his relations and friends, among 
whom were Caius Sosius and Titus Domitius, at that 
time consuls. He likewise spoke favourably in public of 
the people of Bologna, for joining in the association with 

1 In the triumvirate, consisting of Augustus, Mark Antony, and Le- 
pidus. 

2 a.u.c. 723. 



S6 SUETONIUS. 

the rest of Italy to support his cause, because they had, 
in former times, been under the protection of the family 
of the Antonii. And not long afterwards he defeated 
him in a naval engagement near Actium, which was pro- 
longed to so late an hour, that, after the victory, he was 
obliged to sleep on board his ship. From Actium he went 
to the isle of Samos to winter ; but being alarmed with 
the accounts of a mutiny amongst the soldiers he had 
selected from the main body of his army sent to Brun- 
disium after the victory, who insisted on their being re- 
warded for their service and discharged, he returned to 
Italy. In his passage thither, he encountered two violent 
storms, the first between the promontories of Pelopon- 
nesus and ^Etolia, and the other about the Ceraunian 
mountains ; in both of which a part of his Liburnian 
squadron was sunk, the spars and rigging of his own 
ship carried away, and the rudder broken in pieces. He 
remained only twenty-seven days at Brundisium, until 
the demands of the soldiers were settled, and then went, 
by way of Asia and Syria, to Egypt, where laying siege 
to Alexandria, whither Antony had fled with Cleopatra, 
he made himself master of it in a short time. He drove 
Antony to kill himself, after he had used every effort to 
obtain conditions of peace, and he saw his corpse. 1 Cleo- 
patra he anxiously wished to save for his triumph ; and 
when she was supposed to have been bit to death by an 
asp, he sent for the Psylli 2 to endeavour to suck out the 

1 There is no other authority for Augustus having viewed Antony's 
corpse. Plutarch informs us, that on hearing his death, Augustus re- 
tired into the interior of his tent, and wept over the fate of his colleague 
and friend, his associate in so many former struggles, both in war and 
the administration of affairs. 

2 The poison proved fatal, as every one knows; see Velleius, ii. 27 ; 
Florus, iv. 11. The Psylli were a people of Africa, celebrated for suck- 
ing the poison from wounds inflicted by serpents with which that coun- 



CLESAR AUGUSTUS. 87 

poison. He allowed them to be buried together in the 
same grave, and ordered a mausoleum, begun by them- 
selves, to be completed. The eldest of Antony's two sons 
by Fulvia he commanded to be taken by force from the 
statue of Julius Caesar, to which he had fled, after many 
fruitless supplications for his life, and put him to death. 
The same fate attended Caesario, Cleopatra's son by 
Caesar, as he pretended, who had fled for his life, but was 
retaken. The children which Antony had by Cleopatra 
he saved, and brought up and cherished in a manner 
suitable to their rank, just as if they had been his own 
relations. 

XVIII. At this time he had a desire to see the sarco- 
phagus and body of Alexander the Great, which, for that 
purpose, were taken out of the cell in which they rested ; T 
and after viewing them for some time, he paid honours to 
the memory of that prince, by offering a golden crown, 
and scattering flowers upon the body. 2 Being asked if 
he wished to see the tombs of the Ptolemies also ; he re- 
plied, " I wish to see a king, not dead men." 3 He reduced 
Egypt into the form of a province ; and to render it more 

try anciently abounded. They pretended to be endowed with an anti- 
dote, which rendered their bodies insensible to the virulence of that 
species of poison ; and the ignorance of those times gave credit to the 
physical immunity which they arrogated. But Celsus, who flourished 
about fifty years after the period we speak of, has exploded the vulgar 
prejudice which prevailed in their favour. He justly observes, that the 
venom of serpents, like some other kinds of poison, proves noxious 
only when applied to the naked fibre ; and that, provided there is no 
ulcer in the gums or palate, the poison may be received into the mouth 
with perfect safety. 

1 Strabo informs us that Ptolemy caused it to be deposited in a golden 
sarcophagus, which was afterwards exchanged for one of glass, in which 
probably Augustus saw the remains. 

2 A custom of all ages and of people the most remote from each other. 

3 Meaning the degenerate race of the Ptolemean kings. 



88 SUETONIUS. 

fertile, and more capable of supplying Rome with corn, 
he employed his army to scour the canals, into which the 
Nile, upon its rise, discharges itself; but which during a 
long series of years had become nearly choked up with 
mud. To perpetuate the glory of his victory at Actium, 
he built the city of Nicopolis on that part of the coast, 
and established games to be celebrated there every five 
years ; enlarging likewise an old temple of Apollo, he 
ornamented with naval trophies 1 the spot on which he 
had pitched his camp, and consecrated it to Neptune and 
Mars. 

XIX. He afterwards 2 quashed several tumults and in- 
surrections, as well as several conspiracies against his life, 
which were discovered, by the confession of accomplices, 
before they were ripe for execution; and others subse- 
quently. Such were those of the younger Lepidus, of 
Varro Mursena, and Fannius Caepio ; then that of Marcus 
Egnatius, afterwards that of Plautius Rufus, and of Lu- 
cius Paulus, his grand-daughter's husband ; and besides 
these, another of Lucius Audasius, an old feeble man, who 
was under prosecution for forgery; as also of Asinius Ep- 
icadus, a Parthinian mongrel, 3 and at last that of Tele- 
phus, a lady's prompter; 4 for he was in danger of his life 

1 The naval trophies were formed of the prows of ships. 

2 a. u. c. 721. 

3 Because his father was a Roman and his mother of the race of the 
Parthini, an Illyrian tribe. 

4 It was usual at Rome, before the elections, for the candidates to en- 
deavour to gain popularity by the usual arts. They would therefore go 
to the houses of the citizens, shake hands with those they met, and 
address them in a kindly manner. It being of great consequence, 
upon those occasions, to know the names of persons, they were com- 
monly attended by a nomenclator, who whispered into their ears that 
information, wherever it was wanted. Though this kind of officer was 
generally an attendant on men, we meet with instances of their having 
been likewise employed in the service of ladies ; either with the view 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 89 

from the plots and conspiracies of some of the lowest of 
the people against him. Audasius and Epicadus had 
formed the design of carrying off to the armies his 
daughter Julia, and his grandson Agrippa, from the is- 
lands in which they were confined. Telephus, wildly 
dreaming that the government was destined to him by 
the fates, proposed to fall both upon Octavius and the sen- 
ate. Nay, once, a soldier's servant belonging to the army 
in Illyricum, having passed the porters unobserved, was 
found in the night-time standing before his chamber-door, 
armed with a hunting-dagger. Whether the person was 
really disordered in the head, or only counterfeited mad- 
ness, is uncertain; for no confession was obtained from 
him by torture. 

XX. He conducted in person only two foreign wars; 
the Dalmatian, whilst he was yet but a youth; and, after 
Antony's final defeat, the Cantabrian. He was wounded 
in the former of these wars; in one battle he received a 
contusion in the right knee from a stone — and in another, 
he was much hurt in one leg and both arms, by the fall of 
a bridge. 1 His other wars he carried on by his lieuten- 
ants; but occasionally visited the army, in some of the 
wars of Pannonia and Germany, or remained at no great 
distance, proceeding from Rome as far as Ravenna, Milan, 
or Aquileia. 

XXI. He conquered, however, partly in person, and 
partly by his lieutenants, Cantabria, 2 Aquitania and 3 Pan- 

of serving candidates to whom they were allied, or of gaining the af- 
fections of the people. 

1 Not a bridge over a river, but a military engine used for gaining 
admittance into a fortress. 

2 Cantabria, in the north of Spain, now the Basque province. 

3 The ancient Pannonia includes Hungary and part of Austria, Styria 
and Carniola. 



9 o SUETONIUS. 

nonia, Dalmatia, with all Illyricum and Rhaetia, 1 besides 
the two Alpine nations, the Vindelici and the Salassii. 2 He 
also checked the incursions of the Dacians, by cutting off 
three of their generals with vast armies, and drove the 
Germans beyond the river Elbe; removing two other 
tribes who submitted, the Ubii and Sicambri, into Gaul, 
and settling them in the country bordering on the Rhine. 
Other nations also, which broke into revolt, he reduced to 
submission. But he never made war upon any nation 
without just and necessary cause; and was so far from 
being ambitious either to extend the empire, or advance his 
own military glory, that he obliged the chiefs of some bar- 
barous tribes to swear in the temple of Mars the Aven- 
ger, 3 that they would faithfully observe their engage- 
ments, and not violate the peace which they had implored. 
Of some he demanded a new description of hostages, 
their women, having found from experience that they 
cared little for their men when given as hostages; but he 
always afforded them the means of getting back their 
hostages whenever they wished it. Even those who en- 
gaged most frequently and with the greatest perfidy in 
their rebellion, he never punished more severely than by 
selling their captives, on the terms of their not serving in 
any neighbouring country, nor being released from their 
slavery before the expiration of thirty years. By the 
character which he thus acquired, for virtue and modera- 

1 The Rhaetian Alps are that part of the chain bordering on the Ty- 
rol. 

2 The Vindelici principally occupied the country which is now the 
kingdom of Bavaria; and the Salassii, that part of Piedmont which in- 
cludes the valley of Aost. 

3 The temple of Mars Ultor was erected by Augustus in fulfilment of 
a vow made by him at the battle of Philippi. It stood in the Forum 
which he built, mentioned in chap. xxix. There are no remains of 
either. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 91 

tion, he induced even the Indians and Scythians, nations 
before known to the Romans by report only, to solicit his 
friendship, and that of the Roman people, by ambassadors. 
The Parthians readily allowed his claim to Armenia ; re- 
storing, at his demand, the standards which they had 
taken from Marcus Crassus and Mark Antony, and offer- 
ing him hostages besides. Afterwards, when a contest 
arose between several pretenders to the crown of that 
kingdom, they refused to acknowledge any one who was 
not chosen by him. 

XXII. The temple of Janus Quirinus, which had been 
shut twice only, from the era of the building of the city 
to his own time, he closed thrice in a much shorter period, 
having established universal peace both by sea and land. 
He twice entered the city with the honours of an Ova- 
tion, 1 namely, after the war of Philippi, and again after that 
of Sicily. He had also three curule triumphs 2 for his sev- 

1 " The Ovatio was an inferior kind of Triumph, granted in cases 
where the victory was not of great importance, or had been obtained 
without difficulty. The general entered the city on foot or on horse- 
back, crowned with myrtle, not with laurel ; and instead of bullocks, 
the sacrifice was performed with a sheep, whence this procession acquired 
its name." — Thomson. 

2 " The greater Triumph, in which the victorious general and his army 
advanced in solemn procession through the city to the Capitol, was the 
highest military honour which could be obtained in the Roman state. 
Foremost in the procession went musicians of various kinds, singing and 
playing triumphal songs. Next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, hav- 
ing their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fillets and garlands. 
Then in carriages were brought the spoils taken from the enemy, statues, 
pictures, plate, armour, gold and silver, and brass ; with golden crowns, 
and other gifts, sent by the allied and tributary states. The captive 
princes and generals followed in chains, with their children and attend- 
ants. After them came the lictors, having their fasces wreathed with 
laurel, followed by a great company of musicians and dancers dressed 
like Satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold ; in the midst of whom was 
one in a female dress, whose business it was, with his looks and ges- 



92 SUETONIUS. 

eral victories in Dalmatia, Actium, and Alexandria ; each 
of which lasted three days. 

XXIII. In all his wars, he never received any signal or 
ignominious defeat, except twice in Germany, under his 
lieutenants Lollius and Varus. The former indeed had in 
it more of dishonour than disaster; but that of Varus 
threatened the security of the empire itself; three legions, 
with the commander, his lieutenants, and all the auxil- 
iaries, being cut off. Upon receiving intelligence of this 
disaster, he gave orders for keeping a strict watch over 
the city, to prevent any public disturbance, and prolonged 
the appointments of the prefects in the provinces, that the 

tures, to insult the vanquished. Next followed a long train of persons 
carrying perfumes. Then came the victorious general, dressed in pur- 
ple embroidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch 
of laurel in his right hand, and in his left an ivory sceptre, with an 
eagle on the top ; having his face painted with vermilion, in the same 
manner as the statue of Jupiter on festival days, and a golden Bulla 
hanging on his breast, and containing some amulet, or magical pre- 
servative against envy. He stood in a gilded chariot, adorned with 
ivory, and drawn by four white horses, sometimes by elephants, attended 
by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens, all in white. His chil- 
dren used to ride in the chariot with him ; and that he might not be 
too much elated, a slave, carrying a golden crown sparkling with gems, 
stood behind him, and frequently whispered in his ear, ' Remember 
that thou art a man ! ' After the general, followed the consuls and 
senators on foot, at least according to the appointment of Augustus ; 
for they formerly used to go before him. His Legati and military 
Tribunes commonly rode by his side. The victorious army, horse and 
foot, came last, crowned with laurel, and decorated with the gifts which 
they had received for their valour, singing their own and their general's 
praises, but sometimes throwing out railleries against him ; and often 
exclaiming, ' Io Triumphe ! ' in which they were joined by all the citi- 
zens, as they passed along. The oxen having been sacrificed, the gen- 
eral gave a magnificent entertainment in the Capitol to his friends and 
the chief men of the city, after which he was conducted home by the 
people, with music and a great number of lamps and torches. ' ' — Thomson. 



GflSAR AUGUSTUS. 



93 



allies might be kept in order by experience of persons to 
whom they were used. He made a vow to celebrate the 
great games in honour of Jupiter, Optimus, Maximus, " if 
he would be pleased to restore the state to more prosper- 
ous circumstances." This had formerly been resorted to 
in the Cimbrian and Marsian wars. In short, we are in- 
formed that he was in such consternation at this event, 
that he let the hair of his head and beard grow for sev- 
eral months, and sometimes knocked his head against the 
door-post, crying out, " O, Ouintilius Varus ! give me back 
my legions!" And ever after he observed the anniversary 
of this calamity, as a day of sorrow and mourning. 

XXIV. In military affairs he made many alterations, 
introducing some practices entirely new, and reviving 
others, which had become obsolete. He maintained the 
strictest discipline among the troops; and would not allow 
even his lieutenants the liberty to visit their wives, except 
reluctantly, and in the winter season only. A Roman 
knight having cut off the thumbs of his two young sons, 
to render them incapable of serving in the wars, he ex- 
posed both him and his estate to public sale. But upon 
observing the farmers of the revenue very greedy for the 
purchase, he assigned him to a freedman of his own, that 
he might send him into the country, and suffer him to re- 
tain his freedom. The tenth legion becoming mutinous, 
he disbanded it with ignominy; and did the same by some 
others which petulantly demanded their discharge; with- 
holding from them the rewards usually bestowed on those 
who had served their stated time in the wars. The cohorts 
which yielded their ground in time of action, he decima- 
ted, and fed with barley. Centurions, as well as common 
sentinels, who deserted their posts when on guard, he 
punished with death. For other misdemeanors he in- 
flicted upon them various kinds of disgrace; such as 



94 SUETONIUS. 

obliging them to stand all day before the praetorium, 
sometimes in their tunics only, and without their belts, 
sometimes to carry poles ten feet long, or sods of turf. 

XXV. After the conclusion of the civil wars, he never, 
in any of his military harangues, or proclamations, ad- 
dressed them by the title of " Fellow-soldiers," but as 
" Soldiers" only. Nor would he suffer them to be other- 
wise called by his sons or step-sons, when they were in 
command; judging the former epithet to convey the idea 
of a degree of condescension inconsistent with military 
discipline, the maintenance of order, and Lis own majes- 
ty, and that of his house. Unless at Rome, in case of 
incendiary fires, or under the apprehension of public dis- 
turbances during a scarcity of provisions, he never em- 
ployed in his army slaves who had been made freedmen, 
except upon two occasions; on one, for the security of the 
colonies bordering upon Illyricum, and on the other, to 
guard the banks of the river Rhine. Although he obliged 
persons of fortune, both male and female, to give up their 
slaves, and they received their manumission at once, yet 
he kept them together under their own standard, un- 
mixed with soldiers who were better born, and armed 
likewise after different fashion. Military rewards, such as 
trappings, collars, and other decorations of gold and sil- 
ver, he distributed more readily than camp or mural 
crowns, which were reckoned more honourable than the 
former. These he bestowed sparingly, without partiality, 
and frequently even on common soldiers. He presented 
M. Agrippa, after the naval engagement in the Sicilian 
war, with a sea-green banner. Those who shared in the 
honours of a triumph, although they had attended him in 
his expeditions, and taken part in his victories, he judged 
it improper to distinguish by the usual rewards for ser- 
vice, because they had a right themselves to grant such 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 95 

rewards to whom they pleased. He thought nothing 
more derogatory to the character of an accomplished 
general than precipitancy and rashness; on which account 
he had frequently in his mouth those proverbs: 



And 



ZtzsoSs fipadiax;, 
Hasten slowly, 

' AfTcpaXiiq yap l<rr' ap.eiv(t)v y 7} &pd<ru<; (TTpaTy]XdT7jq. 
The cautious captain's better than the bold. 



And "That is done fast enough, which is done well 
enough." 

He was wont to say also, that " a battle or a war ought 
never to be undertaken, unless the prospect of gain over 
balanced the fear of loss. For," said he, " men who pur- 
sue small advantages with no small hazard, resemble 
those who fish with a golden hook, the loss of which, if 
the line should happen to break, could never be compen- 
sated by all the fish they might take." 

XXVI. He was advanced to public offices before the 
age at which he was legally qualified for them; and to 
some, also, of a new kind, and for life. He seized the 
consulship in the twentieth year of his age, quartering his 
legions in a threatening manner near the city, and send- 
ing deputies to demand it for him in the name of the 
army. When the senate demurred, a centurion, named 
Cornelius, who was at the head of the chief deputation, 
throwing back his cloak, and showing the hilt of his sword, 
had the presumption to say in the senate-house, " This 
will make him consul, if ye will not." His second consul- 
ship he filled nine years afterwards; his third, after the 
interval of only one year, and held the same office every 
year successively until the eleventh. From this period, 
although the consulship was frequently offered him, he 
always declined it, until, after a long interval, not less 



96 SUETONIUS. 

than seventeen years, he voluntarily stood for the twelfth, 
and two years after that for a thirteenth ; that he might 
successively introduce into the forum, on their entering 
public life, his two sons, Caius and Lucius, while he was 
invested with the highest office in the state. In his five 
consulships from the sixth to the eleventh, he continued 
in office throughout the year; but in the rest, during only 
nine, six, four, or three months, and in his second no more 
than a few hours. For having sat for a short time in the 
morning, upon the calends of January [ist January], in 
his curule chair, 1 before the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, 
he abdicated the office, and substituted another in his 
room. Nor did he enter upon them all at Rome, but 
upon the fourth in Asia, the fifth in the Isle of Samos, and 
the eighth and ninth at Tarragona. 2 

XXVII. During ten years he acted as one of the tri- 
umvirate for settling the commonwealth, in which office he 
for some time opposed his colleagues in their design of a 
proscription ; but after it was begun, he prosecuted it with 
more determined rigour than either of them. For whilst 
they were often prevailed upon, by the interest and inter- 
cession of friends, to show mercy, he alone strongly in- 
sisted that no one should be spared, and even proscribed 
Caius Toranius, 3 his guardian, who had been formerly the 

1 " The Sella Curulis was a chair on which the principal magistrates 
sat in the tribunal upon solemn occasions. It had no back, but stood 
on four crooked feet, fixed to the extremities of cross pieces of wood, 
joined by a common axis, somewhat in the form of the letter X ; was 
covered with leather, and inlaid with ivory. From its construction, it 
might be occasionally folded together for the convenience of carriage, 
and set down where the magistrate chose to use it." — Thomson. 

2 Now Saragossa. 

3 A great and wise man, if he is the same person to whom Cicero's 
letters on the calamities of the times were addressed. — Fain. Epist. c. 

vi. 20, 21. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 97 

colleague of his father Octavius in the edileship. Junius 
Saturnius adds this farther account of him : that when, 
after the proscription was over, Marcus Lepidus made an 
apology in the senate for their past proceedings, and 
gave them hopes of a more mild administration for the 
future, because they had now sufficiently crushed their 
enemies ; he, on the other hand, declared that the only 
limit he had fixed to the proscription was, that he should 
be free to act as he pleased. Afterwards, however, re- 
penting of his severity, he advanced T. Vinius Philo- 
pcemen to the equestrian rank, for having concealed his 
patron at the time he was proscribed. In this same office 
he incurred great odium upon many accounts. For as 
he was one day making an harangue, observing among 
the soldiers Pinarius, a Roman knight, admit some private 
citizens, and engaged in taking notes, he ordered him to 
be stabbed before his eyes, as a busy-body and a spy 
upon him. He so terrified with his menaces Tedius Afer, 
the consul elect, 1 for having reflected upon some action of 
his, that he threw himself from a great height, and died 
on the spot. And when Quintus Gallius, the praetor, 
came to compliment him with a double tablet under his 
cloak, suspecting that it was a sword he had concealed, 
and yet not venturing to make a search, lest it should be 
found to be something else, he caused him to be dragged 
from his tribunal by centurions and soldiers, and tortured 
like a slave : and although he made no confession, or- 
dered him to be put to death, after he had, with his own 
hands, plucked out his eyes. His own account of the 
matter, however, is, that Quintus Gallius sought a private 
conference with him, for the purpose of assassinating 
him ; that he therefore put him in prison, but afterwards 

7 ' a.u.c. 731. 



98 SUETONIUS. 

released him, and banished him the city ; when he per- 
ished either in a storm at sea, or by falling into the hands 
of robbers. 

He accepted of the tribunitian power for life, but more 
than once chose a colleague in that office for two lustra} 
successively. He also had the supervision of morality and 
observance of the laws, for life, but without the title of 
censor; yet he thrice took a census of the people, the 
first and third time with a colleague, but the second by 
himself. 

XXVIII. He twice entertained thoughts of restoring 
the republic; 2 first, immediately after he had crushed 
Antony, remembering that he had often charged him 
with being the obstacle to its restoration. The second 
time was in consequence of a long illness, when he sent 
for the magistrates and the senate to his own house, and 
delivered them a particular account of the state of the 
empire. But reflecting at the same time that it would be 
both hazardous to himself to return to the condition of a 
private person, and might be dangerous to the public to 
have the government placed again under the control of 
the people, he resolved to keep it in his own hands, whe- 
ther with the better event or intention, is hard to say. 
His good intentions he often affirmed in private dis- 

1 The Lustrum was a period of five years, at the end of which the 
census of the people was taken. It was first made by the Roman kings, 
then by the consuls, but after the year 310 from the building of the city, 
by the censors, who were magistrates created for that purpose. It ap- 
pears, however, that the census was not always held at stated periods, 
and sometimes long intervals intervened 

Augustus appears to have been in earnest on these occasions, at least, 
in his desire to retire into private life and release himself from the cares 
of government, if we may believe Seneca. — De Brev. Vit. c. 5. Of 
his two intimate advisers, Agrippa gave this counsel, while Mecaenas 
was for continuing his career of ambition. — Eutrop. 1. 53. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 99 

course, and also published an edict, in which it was de- 
clared in the following terms : " May it be permitted me 
to have the happiness of establishing the commonwealth 
on a safe and sound basis, and thus enjoy the reward of 
which I am ambitious, that of being celebrated for mould- 
ing it into the form best adapted to present circum- 
stances ; so that, on my leaving the world, I may carry 
with me the hope that the foundations which I have laid 
for its future government, will stand firm and stable. 

XXIX. The city, which was not built in a manner suit- 
able to the grandeur of the empire, and was liable to 
inundations of the Tiber, 1 as* well as to fires, was so much 
improved under his administration, that he boasted, not 
without reason, that he " found it of brick, but left it of 
marble." 2 He also rendered it secure for the time to 
come against such disasters, as far as could be effected 
by human foresight. A great number of public build- 
ings were erected by him, the most considerable of which 
were a forum, 3 containing the temple of Mars the Aven- 
ger, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and the ' 
temple of Jupiter Tonans in the capitol. The reason of 
his building a new forum was the vast increase in the 

1 The Tiber has been always remarkable for the frequency of its inun- 
dations and the ravages they occasioned, as remarked by Pliny, iii. 5. 
Livy mentions several such occurrences, as well as one extensive fire, 
which destroyed great part of the city. 

2 The well-known saying of Augustus, recorded by Suetonius, that 
he found a city of bricks, but left it of marble, has another version 
given it by Dio, who applies it to his consolidation of the government, 
to the following effect : " That Rome, which I found built of mud, I 
shall leave you firm as a rock." — Dio. lvi. p. 589. 

3 The same motive which engaged Julius Csesar to build a new forum, 
induced Augustus to erect another. See his life c. x. It stood behind 
the present churches of St. Adrian and St. Luke, and was almost par- 
allel with the public forum, but there are no traces of it remaining. 
The temple of Mars Ultor, adjoining, has been mentioned before, p. 90. 

_ 1 \ C 



ioo SUETONIUS. 

population, and the number of causes to be tried in the 
courts, for which, the two already existing not affording 
sufficient space, it was thought necessary to have a third. 
It was therefore opened for public use before the temple 
of Mars was completely finished ; and a law was passed, 
that causes should be tried, and judges chosen by lot, in 
that place. The temple of Mars was built in fulfilment 
of a vow made during the war of Philippi, undertaken by 
him to avenge his father's murder. He ordained that the 
senate should always assemble there when they met to 
deliberate respecting wars and triumphs ; that thence 
should be despatched all those who were sent into the 
provinces in the command of armies ; and that in it those 
who returned victorious from the wars, should lodge the 
trophies of their triumphs. He erected the temple of 
Apollo 1 in that part of his house on the Palatine hill 
which had been struck with lightning, and which, on that 
account, the soothsayers declared the God to have 
chosen. He added porticos to it, with a library of Latin 
and Greek authors ; 2 and when advanced in years, used 
frequently there to hold the senate, and examine the rolls 
of the judges. 

1 The temple of the Palatine Apollo stood, according to Bianchini, 
a little beyond the triumphal arch of Titus. It appears, from the re- 
verse of a medal of Augustus, to have been a rotondo, with an open 
portico, something like the temple of Vesta. The statues of the fifty- 
daughters of Danae surrounded the portico; and opposite to them 
were their husbands on horseback. In this temple were preserved some 
of the finest works of the Greek artists, both in sculpture and painting. 
Here, in the presence of Augustus, Horace's Carme?i Seculare was sung 
by twenty-seven noble youths, and as many virgins. And here, as our 
author informs us, Augustus, towards the end of his reign, often assem- 
bled the senate. 

2 The library adjoined the temple, and was under the protection of 
Apollo. Caius Julius Hegenus, a freedman of Augustus, and an eminent 
grammarian, was the librarian. 



CiESAR AUGUSTUS. 101 

He dedicated the temple to Apollo Tonans, 1 in acknow- 
ledgment of his escape from a great danger in his Canta- 
brian expedition ; when, as he was travelling in the night, 
his litter was struck by lightning, which killed the slave 
who carried a torch before him. He likewise constructed 
some public buildings in the name of others ; for in- 
stance, his grandsons, his wife, and sister. Thus he 
built the portico and basilica of Lucius and Caius, and 
the porticos of Livia and Octavia, 2 and the theatre of 
Marcellus. 3 He also often exhorted other persons of 
rank to embellish the city by new buildings, or repairing 
and improving the old, according to their means. In 
consequence of this recommendation, many were raised ; 
such as the temple of Hercules and the Muses, by Mar- 

1 The three fluted Corinthian columns of white marble, which stand 
on the declivity of the Capitoline hill, are commonly supposed to be 
the remains of the temple of Jupiter Tonans, erected by Augustus. 
Part of the frieze and cornice are attached to them, which with the 
capitals of the columns are finely wrought. Suetonius tells us on what 
occasion this temple was erected. Of all the epithets given to Jupiter, 
none conveyed more terror to superstitious minds than that of the 
Thunderer — 

Ccelo tonantem credidimus Jovem 
Regnare. — Hor. 1. iii. Ode 5. 

We shall find this temple mentioned again in c. lxxxix. of the life of Au- 
gustus. 

2 The Portico of Octavia stood between the Flaminian circus and the 
theatre of Marcellus, enclosing the temples of Jupiter and Juno, said 
to have been built in the time of the republic. Several remains of them 
exist in the Pescheria or fish-market ; they were of the Corinthian order, 
and have been traced and engraved by Piranesi. 

3 The magnificent theatre of Marcellus was built on the site where 
Suetonius has before informed us that Julius Caesar intended to erect 
one (p. 37). It stood between the portico of Octavia and the hill of 
the capitol. Augustus gave it the name of his nephew Marcellus, though 
he was then dead. Its ruins are still to be seen in the Piazza Monta- 
nara, where the Orsini family have a palace erected on the site. 



102 SUETONIUS. 

cius Philippus ; a temple of Diana by Lucius Cornificius ; 
the Court of Freedom by Asinius Pollio ; a temple of 
Saturn by Munatius Plancus ; a theatre by Cornelius 
Balbus j 1 an amphitheatre by Statilius Taurus ; and sev- 
eral other noble edifices by Marcus Agrippa. 2 

XXX. He divided the city into regions and districts, 
ordaining that the annual magistrates should take by lot 
the charge of the former ; and that the latter should be 
superintended by wardens chosen out of the people of 
each neighbourhood. He appointed a nightly watch to 
be on their guard against accidents from fire ; and, to pre- 
vent the frequent inundations, he widened and cleansed 
the bed of the Tiber, which had in the course of years 
been almost dammed up with rubbish, and the channel 
narrowed by the ruins of houses. 3 To render the ap- 
proaches to the city more commodious, he took upon him- 
self the charge of repairing the Flaminian way as far as 
Ariminum, 4 and distributed the repairs of the other roads 

1 The theatre of Balbus was the third of the three permanent theatres 
of Rome. Those of Pompey and Marcellus have been already men- 
tioned. 

2 Among these were, at least, the noble portico, if not the whole, of 
the Pantheon, still the pride of Rome, under the name of the Rotondo, 
on the frieze of which may be seen the inscription, 

M. AGRIPPA. L. F. COS: TERTIUM. FECIT. 

Agrippa also built the temple of Neptune, and the portico of the Argo- 
nauts. 

3 To whatever extent Augustus may have cleared out the bed of the 
Tiber, the process of its being encumbered with an alluvium of ruins 
and mud has been constantly going on. Not many years ago, a scheme 
was set on foot for clearing it by private enterprise, principally for the 
sake of the valuable remains of art which it is supposed to contain. 

4 The Via Flaminia was probably undertaken by the censor Caius 
Flaminius, and finished by his son of the same name, who was consul 
A.u.c. 566, and employed his soldiers in forming it after subduing the 
Ligurians. It led from the Flumentan gate, now the Porta del Popolo, 



OESAR AUGUSTUS. 103 

amongst several persons who had obtained the honour 
of a triumph ; to be defrayed out of the money arising 
from the spoils of war. Temples decayed by time, or 
destroyed by fire, he either repaired or rebuilt ; and en- 
riched them, as well as many others, with splendid offer- 
ings. On a single occasion, he deposited in the cell of 
the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, sixteen thousand pounds 
of gold, with jewels and pearls to the amount of fifty mil- 
lions of sesterces. 

XXXI. The office of Pontifex Maximus, of which he 
could not decently deprive Lepidus as long as he lived, 1 
he assumed as soon as he was dead. He then caused all 
prophetical books, both in Latin and Greek, the authors 
of which were either unknown, or of no great authority, 
to be brought in ; and the whole collection, amounting to 
upwards of two thousand volumes, he committed to the 
flames, preserving only the Sibylline oracles ; but not 
even those without a strict examination, to ascertain 
which were genuine. This being done, he deposited them 
in two gilt coffers, under the pedestal of the statue of the 
Palatine Apollo. He restored the calendar, which had 
been corrected by Julius Caesar, but through negligence 

through Etruria and Umbria into the Cisalpine Gaul, ending at Ari- 
minum, the frontier town of the territories of the republic, now Rimini, 
on the Adriatic ; and is travelled by every tourist who takes the route, 
north of the Appenines, through the States of the Church, to Rome. 
Every one knows that the great highways, not only in Italy but in the 
provinces, were among the most magnificent and enduring works of 
the Roman people. 

1 It had formed a sort of honourable retirement in which Lepidus 
was shelved, to use a familiar expression, when Augustus got rid of him 
quietly from the Triumvirate. Augustus assumed it A.u.c. 740, thus 
centring the last of all the great offices of the state in his own person ; 
that of Pontifex Maximus, being of high importance, from the sanctity 
attached to it, and the influence it gave him over the whole system of 
religion. 



104 SUETONIUS. 

was again fallen into confusion, 1 to its former regularity ; 
and upon that occasion, called the month Sextilis, 2 by his 
own name, August, rather than September, in which he 
was born ; because in it he had obtained his first consul- 
ship, and all his most considerable victories. 3 He. in- 
creased the number, dignity, and revenues of the priests, 
and especially those of the Vestal Virgins. And when, 
upon the death of one of them, a new one was to be 
taken, 4 and many persons made interest that their daugh- 
ters' names might be omitted in the lists for election, he 
replied with an oath, " If either of my own grand-daugh- 
ters were old enough, I would have proposed her." 

He likewise revived some old religious customs, which 
had become obsolete; as the augury of public health, 5 the 
office of high priest of Jupiter, the religious solemnity of 
the Lupercalia, with the Secular, and Compitalian games. 
He prohibited young boys from running in the Luperca- 

1 In the thirty-six years since the calendar was corrected by Julius 
Caesar, the priests had erroneously intercalated eleven days instead of 
nine. See Julius, c. xi. 

2 Sextilis, the sixth month, reckoning from March, in which the year 
of Romulus commenced. 

3 So Cicero called the day on which he returned from exile, the day 
of his " nativity" and his "new birth," izaXtyewetTiav, a word which 
had afterwards a theological sense, from its use in the New Testament. 

4 Capi. There is a peculiar force in the word here adopted by Sue- 
tonius; the form used by the Pontifex Maximus, when he took the 
novice from the hand of her father, being Te capio amata, " I have 
you, my dear," implying the forcible breach of former ties, as in the 
case of a captive taken in war. 

5 At times when the temple of Janus was shut, and then only, certain 
divinations were made, preparatory to solemn supplication for the pub- 
lic health, " as if," says Dio, "even that could not be implored from 
the gods, unless the signs were propitious." It would be an inquiry of 
some interest, now that the care of the public health is becoming a de- 
partment of the state, with what sanatory measures these becoming so- 
lemnities were attended. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 105 

lia; and in respect of the Secular games, issued an order, 
that no young persons of either sex should appear at any 
public diversions in the night-time, unless in the company 
of some elderly relation. He ordered the household gods 
to be decked twice a year with spring and summer flow- 
ers, 1 in the Compitalian festival. 

Next to the immortal gods, he paid the highest honours 
to the memory of those generals who had raised the 
Roman state from its low origin to the highest pitch of 
grandeur. He accordingly repaired or rebuilt the public 
edifices erected by them; preserving the former inscrip- 
tions, and placing statues of them all, with triumphal em- 
blems, in both the porticos of his forum, issuing an edict 
on the occasion, in which he made the following declara- 
tion: " My design in so doing is, that the Roman people 
may require from me, and all succeeding princes, a con- 
formity to those illustrious examples." He likewise re- 
moved the statue of Pompey from the senate-house, in 
which Caius Caesar had been killed, and placed it under a 
marble arch, fronting the palace attached to Pompey's 
theatre. 

XXXII. He corrected many ill practices, which, to the 
detriment of the public, had either survived the licentious 
habits of the late civil wars, or else originated in the long 
peace. Bands of robbers shewed themselves openly, 
completely armed, under colour of self-defence ; and in 
different parts of the country, travellers, freemen and 
slaves without distinction, were forcibly carried off, and 
kept to work in the houses of correction. 2 Several asso- 

1 Theophrastus mentions the spring and summer flowers most suited 
for these chaplets. Among the former, were hyacinths, roses, and 
white violets ; among the latter, lychinis, amaryllis, iris, and some 
species of lilies. 

3 Ergastulis. These were subterranean strong rooms, with narrow 



io6 SUETONIUS. 

ciations were formed under the specious name of a new 
college, which banded together for the perpetration of all 
kinds of villany. The banditti he quelled by establishing 
posts of soldiers in suitable stations for the purpose; the 
houses of correction were subjected to a strict superin- 
tendence ; all associations, those only excepted which were 
of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were dis- 
solved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a 
long time in arrear with the treasury, as being the princi- 
pal source of vexatious suits and prosecutions. Places in 
the city claimed by the public, where the right was doubt- 
ful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck out 
of the list of criminals the names of those over whom 
prosecutions had been long impending, where nothing 
further was intended by the informers than to gratify 
their own malice, by seeing their enemies humiliated; lay- 
ing it down as a rule, that if any one chose to renew a 
prosecution, he should incur the risk of the punishment 
which he sought to inflict. And that crimes might not es- 
cape punishment, nor business be neglected by delay, he 
ordered the courts to sit during the thirty days which were 
spent in celebrating honorary games. To the three 
classes of judges then existing, he added a fourth, con- 
sisting of persons of inferior order, who were called Du- 
cenarii, and decided all litigations about trifling sums. He 
chose judges from the age of thirty years and upwards; 
that is five years younger than had been usual before. 
And a great many declining the office, he was with much 
difficulty prevailed upon to allow each class of judges a 



windows, like dungeons, in the country houses, where incorrigible 
slaves were confined in fetters, in the intervals of the severe tasks in 
grinding at the hand-mills, quarrying stones, drawing water, and other 
hard agricultural labour in which they were employed. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 107' 

twelve-month's vacation in turn; and the courts to be shut 
during the months of November and December. 1 

XXXIII. He was himself assiduous in his functions as 
a judge, and would sometimes prolong his sittings even 
into the night: 2 if he were indisposed, his litter was placed 
before the tribunal, or he administered justice reclining on 
his couch at home; displaying always not only the greatest 
attention, but extreme lenity. To save a culprit, who evi- 
dently appeared guilty of parricide, from the extreme 
penalty of being sewn up in a sack, because none were 
punished in that manner but such as confessed the fact, 
he is said to have interrogated him thus: " Surely you did 
not kill your father, did you?" And when, in a trial of a 
cause about a forged will, all those who had signed it 
were liable to the penalty of the Cornelian law, he order- 
ed that his colleagues on the tribunal should not only be 
furnished with the two tablets by which they decided, 
" guilty or not guilty," but with a third likewise, ignoring 
the offence of those who should appear to have given 
their signatures through any deception or mistake. All 
appeals in causes between inhabitants of Rome, he as- 
signed every year to the praetor of the city; and where 
provincials were concerned, to men of consular rank, to 
one of whom the business of each province was referred. 

XXXIV. Some laws he abrogated, and he made some 
new ones; such as the sumptuary law, that relating to 
adultery and the violation of chastity, the law against 

1 These months were not only " the Long Vacation " of the lawyers, 
but during them there was a general cessation of business at Rome ; the 
calendar exhibiting a constant succession of festivals. The month of 
December, in particular, was devoted to pleasure and relaxation. 

2 Causes are mentioned, the hearing of which was so protracted that 
lights were required in the court ; and sometimes they lasted, we are 
told, as long as eleven or twelve days. 



108 SUETONIUS. 

bribery in elections, and likewise that for the encourage- 
ment of marriage. Having been more severe in his re- 
form of this law than the rest, he found the people utterly 
averse to submit to it, unless the penalties were abolished 
or mitigated, besides allowing an interval of three years 
after a wife's death, and increasing the premiums on mar- 
riage. The equestrian order clamoured loudly, at a spec- 
tacle in the theatre, for its total repeal ; whereupon he 
sent for the children of Germanicus, and shewed them 
partly sitting upon his own lap, and partly on their father's; 
intimating by his looks and gestures, that they ought not 
to think it a grievance to follow the example of that 
young man. But finding that the force of the law was 
eluded, by marrying girls under the age of puberty, and 
by frequent change of wives, he limited the time for con- 
summation after espousals, and imposed restrictions on 
divorce. 

XXXV. By two separate scrutinies he reduced to their 
former number and splendour the senate, which had been 
swamped by a disorderly crowd ; for they were now more 
than a thousand, and some of them very mean persons, 
who, after Caesar's death, had been chosen by dint of in- 
terest and bribery, so that they had the nickname of Or- 
cini among the people. 1 The first of these scrutinies was 
left to themselves, each senator naming another ; but the 
last was conducted by himself and Agrippa. On this oc- 
casion he is believed to have taken his seat as he presided, 
with a coat of mail under his tunic, and a sword by his 
side, and with ten of the stoutest men of senatorial rank, 

1 Orcini. They were also called Charonites, the point of the sar- 
casm being, that they owed their elevation to a dead man, one who was 
gone to Orcus, namely Julius Caesar, after whose death Mark Antony 
introduced into the senate many persons of low rank who were desig- 
nated for that honour in a document left by the deceased emperor. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 109 

who were his friends, standing round his chair. Cordus 
Cremutius 1 relates that no senator was suffered to ap- 
proach him, except singly, and after having his bosom 
searched [for secreted daggers]. Some he obliged to 
have the grace of declining the office ; these he allowed 
to retain the privileges of wearing the distinguishing 
dress, occupying the seats at the solemn spectacles, and 
of feasting publicly, reserved to the senatorial order. 2 
That those who were chosen and approved of, might per- 
form their functions under more solemn obligations, and 
with less inconvenience, he ordered that every senator, 
before he took his seat in the house, should pay his devo- 
tions, with an offering of frankincense and wine, at the al- 
tar of that God in whose temple the senate then assem- 
bled, 3 and that their stated meetings should be only twice 
in the month, namely, on the calends and ides ; and that 
in the months of September and October, 4 a certain num- 
ber only, chosen by lot, such as the law required to give 
validity to a decree, should be required to attend. For 
himself, he resolved to choose every six months a new 
council, with whom he might consult previously upon such 
affairs as he judged proper at any time to lay before the 
full senate. He also took the votes of the senators upon 

1 Cordus Cremutius wrote a History of the Civil Wars, and the 
Times of Augustus, as we are informed by Dio, 6, 52. 

2 In front of the orchestra. 

3 The senate usually assembled in one of the temples, and there was 
an altar consecrated to some god in the curia, where they otherwise met, 
as that to Victory in the Julian Curia. 

4 To allow of their absence during the vintage, always an important 
season in rural affairs in wine-growing countries. In the middle and 
south of Italy, it begins in September, and, in the worst aspects, the 
grapes are generally cleared before the end of October. In elevated 
districts they hung on the trees, as we have witnessed, till the month of 
November. 



no SUETONIUS. 

any subject of importance, not according to custom, nor 
in regular order, but as he pleased ; that every one might 
hold himself ready to give his opinion, rather than a mere 
vote of assent. 

XXXVI. He also made several other alterations in the 
management of public affairs, among which were these 
following: that the acts of the senate should not be pub- 
lished ; 1 that the magistrates should not be sent into the 
provinces immediately after the expiration of their office; 
that the proconsuls should have a certain sum assigned 
them out of the treasury for mules and tents, which used 
before to be contracted for by the government with pri- 
vate persons; that the management of the treasury 
should be transferred from the city- quaestors to the prae- 
tors, or those who had already served in the latter office; 
and that the decemviri should call together the court of 
One hundred, which had been formerly summoned by 
those who had .filled the office of quaestor. 

XXXVII. To augment the number of persons em- 
ployed in the administration of the state, he devised sev- 
eral new offices : such as surveyors of the public buildings, 
of the roads, the aqueducts, and the bed of the Tiber; for 
the distribution of corn to the people ; the praefecture of 
the -city; a triumvirate for the election of the senators; and 
another for inspecting the several troops of the equestri- 
an order, as often as it was necessary. He revived the 
office of censor, 2 which had been long disused, and in- 

1 Julius Caesar had introduced the contrary practice. See Julius, 

C XX. 

2 a. u. c. 312, two magistrates were created, under the name of Cen- 
sors, whose office, at first, was to take an account of the number of the 
people, and the value of their estates. Power was afterwards granted 
them to inspect the morals of the people ; and from this period the 
office became of great importance. After Sylla, the election of censors 



GdESAR AUGUSTUS. in 

creased the number of praetors. He likewise required 
that whenever the consulship was conferred on him he 
should have two colleagues instead of one; but his pro- 
posal was rejected, all the senators declaring by acclama- 
tion that he abated his high majesty quite enough in not 
filling the office alone, and consenting to share it with an- 
other. 

XXXVIII. He was unsparing in the reward of military 
merit, having granted to above thirty generals the honour 
of the greater triumph ; besides which, he took care to 
have triumphal decorations voted by the senate for more 
than that number. That the sons of senators might be- 
come early acquainted with the administration of affairs, 
he permitted them, at the age when they took the garb of 
manhood, 1 to assume also the distinction of the senatorian 
robe, with its broad border, and to be present at the de- 
bates in the senate-house. When they entered the mili- 
tary service, he not only gave them the rank of military 
tribunes in the legions, but likewise the command of the 
auxiliary horse. And that all might have an opportunity 
of acquiring military experience, he commonly joined two 
sons of senators in command of each troop of horse. He 
frequently reviewed the troops of the equestrian order, 

was intermitted for seventeen years. Under the emperors, the office of 
censor was abolished ; but the chief functions of it were exercised by 
the emperors themselves, and frequently both with caprice and severity. 

1 Young men until they were seventeen years of age, and young wo- 
men until they were married, wore a white robe bordered with purple, 
called Toga Proztexta. The former, when they had completed this 
period, laid aside the dress of minority, and assumed the Toga Fi'rilis, 
or manly habit. The ceremony of changing the Toga was performed 
with great solemnity before the images of the Zares, to whom the Bulla 
was consecrated. On this occasion, they went either to the Capitol, or 
to some temple, to pay their devotions to the Gods. 



ii2 SUETONIUS. 

reviving the ancient custom of a cavalcade, 1 which had 
been long laid aside. But he did not suffer any one to 
be obliged by an accuser to dismount while he passed in 
review, as had formerly been the practice. As for such 
as were infirm with age, or any way deformed, he allowed 
them to send their horses before them, coming on foot to 
answer to their names, when the muster roll was called 
over soon afterwards. He permitted those who had at- 
tained the age of thirty-five years, and desired not to 
keep their horse any longer, to have the privilege of giv- 
ing it up. 

XXXIX. With the assistance of ten senators, he 
obliged each of the Roman knights to give an account 
of his life : in regard to those who fell under his displea- 
sure, some were punished ; others had a mark of infamy 
set against their names. The most part he only repri- 
manded, but not in the same terms. The mildest mode 
of reproof was by delivering them tablets, 2 the contents 

1 Transvectio : a procession of the equestrian order, which they made 
with great splendour through the city, every year, on the fifteenth of 
July. They rode on horseback from the temple of Honour, or of Mars, 
without the city, to the Capitol, with wreaths of olive on their heads, 
dressed in robes of scarlet, and bearing in their hands the military orna- 
ments which they had received from their general, as a reward of their 
valour. The knights rode up to the censor, seated on his curule chair 
in front of the Capitol, and dismounting, led their horses in review 
before him. If any of the knights was corrupt in his morals, had di- 
minished his fortune below the legal standard, or even had not taken 
proper care of his horse, the censor ordered him to sell his horse, by 
which he was considered as degraded from the equestrian order. 

2 Pugillaria were a kind of pocket-book, so called, because memo- 
randums were written or impinged by the styH, on their waxed surface. 
They appear to have been of very ancient origin, for we read of them 
in Homer under the name of IJbaxss. — II. £ 169. 

rpd(}>aq iv nivaxt xrvxrui 0u/J.o<f06pa TtoXXd. 
Writing dire things upon his tablet's roll. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 113 

of which, confined to themselves, they were to read on 
the spot. Some he disgraced for borrowing money at 
low interest, and letting it out again upon usurious profit. 
XL. In the election of tribunes of the people, if there 
was not a sufficient number of senatorian candidates, he 
nominated others from the equestrian order; granting 
them the liberty, after the expiration of their office, to 
continue in whichsoever of the two orders they pleased. 
As most of the knights had been much reduced in their 
estates by the civil wars, and therefore durst not sit to 
see the public games in the theatre in the seats allotted 
to their order, for fear of the penalty provided by the 
law in that case, he enacted, that none were liable to it, 
who had themselves, or whose parents had ever, pos- 
sessed a knight's estate. He took the census of the 
Roman people street by street: and that the people 
might not be too often taken from their business to 
receive the distribution of corn, it was his intention to 
deliver tickets three times a year for four months re- 
spectively ; but at their request, he continued the former 
regulation, that they should receive their share monthly. 
He revived the former law of elections, endeavouring, by 
various penalties, to suppress the practice of bribery. 
Upon the day of election, he distributed to the freedmen 
of the Fabian and Scaptian tribes, in which he himself 
was enrolled, a thousand sesterces each, that they might 
look for nothing from any of the candidates. Consider- 
ing it of extreme importance to preserve the Roman 
people pure, and untainted with a mixture of foreign or 
servile blood, he not only bestowed the freedom of the 
city with a sparing hand, but laid some restriction upon 
the practice of manumitting slaves. When Tiberius in- 
terceded with him for the freedom of Rome in behalf of 
a Greek client of his, he wrote to him for answer, " I 
8 



ii4 SUETONIUS. 

shall not grant it, unless he comes himself, and satisfies 
me that he has just grounds for the application." And 
when Livia begged the freedom of the city for a tributary 
Gaul, he refused it, but offered to release him from pay- 
ment of taxes, saying, " I shall sooner suffer some loss in 
my exchequer, than that the citizenship of Rome be ren- 
dered too common." Not content with interposing many 
obstacles to either the partial or complete emancipation 
of slaves, by quibbles respecting the number, condition 
and difference of those who were to be manumitted ; he 
likewise enacted that none who had been put in chains or 
tortured, should ever obtain the freedom of the city in 
any degree. He endeavoured also to restore the old 
habit and dress of the Romans ; and upon seeing once, 
in an assembly of the people, a crowd in grey cloaks, 1 he 
exclaimed with indignation, "See there, 

Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatem." 2 

Rome's conquering sons, lords of the wide-spread globe, 
Stalk proudly in the toga's graceful robe. 

And he gave orders to the ediles not to permit, in future, 
any Romans to be present in the forum or circus unless 
they took off their short coats, and wore the toga. 

XLI. He displayed his munificence to all ranks of the 
people on various occasions. Moreover, upon his bring- 
ing the treasure belonging to the kings of Egypt into the 
city, in his Alexandrian triumph, he made money so plen- 
tiful, that interest fell, and the price of land rose consid- 

1 Pullatorum; dusky, either from their dark colour, or their being 
soiled. The toga was white, and was the distinguishing costume of 
the sovereign people of Rome, without which, they were not to appear 
in public ; as members of a university are forbidden to do so, without 
the academical dress, or officers in garrisons out of their regimentals. 

2 JEn. i. 186. 



(LESAR AUGUSTUS. 115 

erably. And afterwards, as often as large sums of money 
came into his possession by means of confiscations, he 
would lend it free of interest, for a fixed term, to such as 
could give security for the double of what was borrowed. 
The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead of eight 
hundred thousand sesterces, the former standard, he or- 
dered, for the future, to be twelve hundred thousand; 
and to those who had not so much, he made good the 
deficiency. He often made donations to the people, but 
generally of different sums ; sometimes four hundred, 
sometimes three hundred, or two hundred and fifty ses- 
terces: upon which occasions, he extended his bounty 
even to young boys, who before were not used to receive 
anything, until they arrived at eleven years of age. In a 
scarcity of corn, he would frequently let them have it at 
a very low price, or none at all ; and doubled the number 
of the money tickets. 

XLII. But to show that he was a prince who regarded 
more the good of his people than their applause, he rep- 
rimanded them very severely, upon their complaining 
of the scarcity and dearness of wine. " My son-in-law, 
Agrippa," he said, " has sufficiently provided for quench- 
ing your thirst, by the great plenty of water with which 
he has supplied the town." Upon their demanding a gift 
which he had promised them, he said, " I am a man of 
my word." But upon their importuning him for one 
which he had not promised, he issued a proclamation 
upbraiding them for their scandalous impudence ; at the 
same time telling them, " I shall now give you nothing, 
whatever I may have intended to do." With the same 
strict firmness, when, upon a promise he had made of a 
donative, he found many slaves had been emancipated 
and enrolled amongst the citizens, he declared that no 
one should receive anything who was not included in the 



n6 SUETONIUS. 

promise, and he gave the rest less than he had promised 
them, in order that the amount he had set apart might 
hold out. On one occasion, in a season of great scarcity, 
which it was difficult to remedy, he ordered out of the city 
the troops of slaves brought for sale, the gladiators be- 
longing to the masters of defence, and all foreigners, 
excepting physicians and the teachers of the liberal sci- 
ences. Part of the domestic slaves were likewise ordered 
to be dismissed. When, at last, plenty was restored, he 
writes thus : " I was much inclined to abolish for ever the 
practice of allowing the people corn at the public ex- 
pense, because they trust so much to it, that they are too 
lazy to till their lands ; but I did not persevere in my 
design, as I felt sure that the practice would some time 
or other be revived by some one ambitious of popular 
favour." However, he so managed the affair ever after- 
wards, that as much account was taken of husbandmen 
and traders, as of the idle populace. 1 

XLIII. In the number, variety, and magnificence of his 
public spectacles, he surpassed all former example. Four 
and-twenty times, he says, he treated the people with 
games upon his own account, and three-and-twenty times 
for such magistrates as were either absent, or not able to 
afford the expense. The performances took place some- 
times in the different streets of the city, and upon seve- 
ral stages, by players in all languages. The same he did 
not only in the forum and amphitheatre, but in the circus 
likewise, and in the septa : 2 and sometimes he exhibited 

1 It is hardly necessary to direct the careful reader's attention to views 
of political economy so worthy of an enlightened prince. But it was 
easier to make the Roman people wear the toga, than to forego the cry 
of " Panem et Circenses." 

2 Septa were enclosures made with boards, commonly for the purpose 
of distributing the people into distinct classes, and erected occasion- 
ally, like our hustings. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 117 

only the hunting of wild beasts. He entertained the peo- 
ple with wrestlers in the Campus Martius, where wooden 
seats were erected for the purpose; and also with a naval 
fight, for which he excavated the ground near the Tiber, 
where there is now the grove of the Caesars. During 
these two entertainments he stationed guards in the city 
lest, by robbers taking advantage of the small number of 
people left at home, it might be exposed to depredations. 
In the circus he exhibited chariot and foot races, and com- 
bats with wild beasts, in which the performers were often 
youths of the highest rank. His favorite spectacle was 
the Trojan game, acted by a select number of boys, in 
parties differing in age and station ; thinking that it was 
a practice both excellent in itself, and sanctioned by an- 
cient usage, that the spirit of the young nobles should be 
displayed in such exercises. Caius Nonius Asprenas, who 
was lamed by a fall in this diversion, he presented with a 
gold collar, and allowed him and his posterity to bear the 
surname of Torquati. But soon afterwards he gave up 
the exhibition of this game, in consequence of a severe 
and bitter speech made in the senate by Asinius Pollio, 
the orator, in which he complained bitterly of the misfor- 
tune of yEserninus, his grandson, who likewise broke his 
leg in the same diversion. 

Sometimes he engaged Roman knights to act upon the 
stage, or to fight as gladiators ; but only before the prac- 
tice was prohibited by a decree of the senate, Thence- 
forth, the only exhibition he made of that kind, was that 
of a young man named Lucius, of a good family, who was 
not quite two feet in height, and weighed only seventeen 
pounds, but had a stentorian voice. In one of his public 
spectacles, he brought the hostages of the Parthians, the 
first ever sent to Rome from that nation, through the 
middle of the amphitheatre, and placed them in the sec- 



n8 SUETONIUS. 

ond tier of seats above him. He used likewise, at times 
when there were no public entertainments, if any thing 
was brought to Rome which was uncommon, and might 
gratify curiosity, to expose it to public view, in any place 
whatever ; as he did a rhinoceros in the Septa, a tiger up- 
on a stage, and a snake fifty cubits long in the Comitium. 
It happened in the Circensian games, which he performed 
in consequence of a vow, that he was taken ill, and oblig- 
ed to attend the Thensae, 1 reclining on a litter. Another 
time, in the games celebrated for the opening of the the- 
atre of Marcellus, the joints of his curule chair happening 
to give way, he fell on his back. And in the games ex- 
hibited by his grandsons, when the people were in such 
consternation, by an alarm raised that the theatre was 
falling, that all his efforts to re-assure them and keep them 
quiet, failed, he moved from his place, and seated himself 
in that part of the theatre which was thought to be ex- 
posed to most danger. 

XLIV. He corrected the confusion and disorder with 
which the spectators took their seats at the public games, 
after an affront which was offered to a senator at Puteoli, 
for whom, in a crowded theatre, no one would make room. 
He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all 
public spectacles of any sort, and in any place whatever, 
the first tier of benches should be left empty for the ac- 

1 The Thensa was a splendid carriage with four wheels, and four 
horses, adorned with ivory and silver, in which, at the Circensian 
games, the images of the gods were drawn in solemn procession from 
their shrines, to a place in the circus, called the Pulvinar, where couches 
were prepared for their reception. It received its name from thongs 
(lora tensd) stretched before it ; and was attended in the procession by- 
persons of the first rank, in their most magnificent apparel. The at- 
tendants took delight in putting their hands to the traces : and if a 
boy happened to let go the thong which he held, it was an indispen- 
sable rule that the procession should be renewed. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 119 

commodation of senators. He would not even permit the 
ambassadors of free nations, nor of those which were al- 
lies of Rome, to sit in the orchestra; having found that 
some manumitted slaves had been sent under that char- 
acter. He separated the soldiery from the rest of the peo- 
ple, and assigned to married plebeians their particular rows 
of seats. To the boys he assigned their own benches, 
and to their tutors the seats which were nearest it ; order- 
ing that none clothed in black should sit in the centre of 
the circle. 1 Nor would he allow any women to witness the 
combats of the gladiators, except from the .upper part of 
the theatre, although they formerly used to take their 
places promiscuously with the rest of the spectators. To 
the vestal virgins he granted seats in the theatre, reserved 
for them only, opposite the praetor's bench. He excluded 
however, the whole female sex from seeing the wrestlers: 
so that in the games which he exhibited upon his acces- 
sion to the office of high-priest, he deferred producing a 
pair of combatants which the people called for, until the 
next morning; and intimated by proclamation, "his plea- 
sure that no woman should appear in the theatre before 
five o'clock." 

XLV. He generally viewed the Circensian games him- 
self from the upper rooms of the houses of his friends or 
freedmen; sometimes from the place appointed for the 
statues of the gods, and sitting in company with his wife 
and children. He occasionally absented himself from the 
spectacles for several hours, and sometimes for whole 
days ; but not without first making an apology, and ap- 
pointing substitutes to preside in his stead. When pres- 

1 The Cavea was the name of the whole of that part of the theatre 
where the spectators sat. The foremost rows were called cavea prima, 
or mm; the last, cavea ultima, or summa ; and the middle, cavea media. 



120 SUETONIUS. 

ent, he* never attended to anything else; either to avoid 
the reflections which he used to say were commonly made 
upon his father, Csesar, for perusing letters and memori- 
als, and making rescripts during the spectacles ; or from 
the real pleasure he took in attending those exhibitions; 
of which he made no secret, he often candidly owning it. 
This he manifested frequently by presenting honorary 
crowns and handsome rewards to the best performers, in 
the games exhibited by others ; and he never was present 
at any performance of the Greeks, without rewarding the 
most deserving, according to their merit. He took par- 
ticular pleasure in witnessing pugilistic contests, especially 
those of the Latins, not only between combatants who 
had been trained scientifically, whom he used often to 
match with the Greek champions ; but even between 
mobs of the lower classes fighting in streets, and tilting 
at random, without any knowledge of the art. In short, 
he honoured with his patronage all sorts of people who 
contributed in any way to the success of the public enter- 
tainments. He not only maintained, but enlarged, the 
privileges of the wrestlers. He prohibited combats of 
gladiators where no quarter was given. He deprived the 
magistrates of the power of correcting the stage-players, 
which by an ancient law was allowed them at all times, 
and in all places ; restricting their jurisdiction entirely to 
the time of performance and misdemeanours in the thea- 
tres. He would, however, admit of no abatement, and 
exacted with the utmost rigour the greatest exertions of 
the wrestlers and gladiators in their several encounters. 
He went so far in restraining the licentiousness of stage- 
players, that upon discovering that Stephanio, a per- 
former of the highest class, had a married woman with 
her hair cropped, and dressed in boy's clothes, to wait 
upon him at table, he ordered him to be whipped through 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 121 

all the three theatres, and then banished him. Hylas, an 
actor of pantomimes, upon a complaint against him by 
the praetor, he commanded to be scourged in the court of 
his own house, which, however, was open to the public. 
And Pylades he not only banished from the city, but from 
Italy also, for pointing with his finger at a spectator by 
whom he was hissed, and turning the eyes of the audi- 
ence upon him. 

XLVI. Having thus regulated the city and its concerns, 
he augmented the population of Italy by planting in it no 
less than twenty-eight colonies, 1 and greatly improved it 
by public works, and a beneficial application of the reve- 
nues. In rights and privileges, he rendered it in a meas- 
ure equal to the city itself, by inventing a new kind of 
suffrage, which the principal officers and magistrates of 
the colonies might take at home, and forward under seal 
to the city, against the time of the elections. To increase 
the number of persons of condition, and of children 
among the lower ranks, he granted the petitions of all 
those who requested the honour of doing military service 
on horseback as knights, provided their demands were 
seconded by the recommendation of the town in which 
they lived ; and when he visited the several districts of 
Italy, he distributed a thousand sesterces a head to such 
of the lower class as presented him with sons or daugh- 
ters. 

XLVII. The more important provinces, which could 
not with ease or safety be entrusted to the government 
of annual magistrates, he reserved for his own adminis- 
tration : the rest he distributed by lot amongst the pro- 
consuls ; but sometimes he made exchanges, and fre- 
quently visited most of both kinds in person. Some cities 

1 A U.C. 726. 



122 SUETONIUS. 

in alliance with Rome, but which by their great licentious- 
ness were hastening to ruin, he deprived of their indepen- 
dence. Others, which were much in debt, he relieved, 
and rebuilt such as had been destroyed by earthquakes. 
To those that could produce any instance of their having 
deserved well of the Roman people, he presented the 
freedom of Latium, or even that of the City. There is 
not, I believe, a province, except Africa and Sardinia, 
which he did not visit. After forcing Sextus Pompeius 
to take refuge in those provinces, he was indeed prepar- 
ing to cross over from Sicily to them, but was prevented 
by continual and violent storms, and afterwards there 
was no occasion or call for such a voyage. 

XLVIII. Kingdoms, of which he had made himself mas- 
ter by the right of conquest, a few only excepted, he either 
restored to their former possessors, 1 or conferred upon 
aliens. Between kings in alliance with Rome, he encour- 
aged most intimate union ; being always ready to pro- 
mote or favour any proposal of marriage or friendship 
amongst them ; and, indeed, treated them all with the 
same consideration, as if they were members and parts 
of the empire. To such of them as were minors or luna- 
tics he appointed guardians, until they arrived at age, or 
recovered their senses ; and the sons of many of them he 
brought up and educated with his own. 

XLIX. With respect to the army, he distributed the 
legions and auxiliary troops throughout the several prov- 
inces. He stationed a fleet at Misenum, and another at 
Ravenna, for the protection of the Upper and Lower 
Seas. 2 A certain number of the forces were selected, 
to occupy the posts in the city, and partly for his own 

1 As in the case of Herod, Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xv. 10. 

2 The Adriatic and the Tuscan. 



CESAR AUGUSTUS. 123 

body-guard; but he dismissed the Spanish guard, which 
he retained about him till the fall of Antony ; and also 
the Germans, whom he had amongst his guards, until the 
defeat of Varus. Yet he never permitted a greater force 
than three cohorts in the city, and had no (praetorian) 
camps. 1 The rest he quartered in the neighbourhood of 
the nearest towns, in winter and summer camps. All the 
troops throughout the empire he reduced to one fixed 
model with regard to their pay and their pensions; deter- 
mining these according to their rank in the army, the time 
they had served, and their private means; so that after 
their discharge, they might not be tempted by age or ne- 
cessities to join the agitators for a revolution. For the 
purpose of providing a fund always ready to meet their 
pay and pensions, he instituted a military exchequer, and 
appropriated new taxes to that object. In order to obtain 
the earliest intelligence of what was passing in the prov- 
inces, he established posts, consisting at first of young 
men stationed at moderate distances along the military 
roads, and afterwards of regular couriers with fast vehi- 
cles; which appeared to him the most commodious, be- 
cause the persons who were the bearers of dispatches, 
written on the spot, might then be questioned about the 
business, as occasion occurred. 

L. In sealing letters-patent, rescripts, or epistles, he at 
first used the figure of a sphinx, afterwards the head of 
Alexander the Great, and at last his own, engraved by the 
hand of Dioscorides ; which practice was retained by the 
succeeding emperors. He was extremely precise in dat- 
ing his letters, putting down exactly the time of the day 
or night at which they were dispatched. 

LI. Of his clemency and moderation there are abun- 

1 It was first established by Tiberius. See c. xxxvii. 



i2 4 SUETONIUS. 

dant and signal instances. For, not to enumerate how 
many and what persons of the adverse party he par- 
doned, received into favour, and suffered to rise to the 
highest eminence in the state ; he thought it sufficient to 
punish Junius Novatus and Cassius Patavinus, who were 
both plebeians, one of them with a fine, and the other 
with an easy banishment ; although the former had pub- 
lished, in the name of young Agrippa, a very scurrilous 
letter against him, and the other declared openly, at an 
entertainment where there was a great deal of company, 
" that he neither wanted inclination nor courage to stab 
him." In the trial of ^Emilius .^Elianus, of Cordova, 
when, among other charges exhibited against him, it was 
particularly insisted upon, that he used to calumniate 
Caesar, he turned round to the accuser, and said, with an 
air and tone of passion, " I wish you could make that 
appear ; I shall let ^lianus know that I have a tongue 
too, and shall speak sharper of him than he ever did of 
me." Nor did he. either then or afterwards, make any 
farther inquiry into the affair. And when Tiberius, in a 
letter, complained of the affront with great earnestness, 
he returned him an answer in the following terms : " Do 
not, my dear Tiberius, give way to the ardour of youth in 
this affair ; nor be so indignant that any person should 
speak ill of me. It is enough, for us, if we can prevent 
any one from really doing us mischief." 

LII. Although he knew that it had been customary to 
decree temples in honour of the proconsuls, yet he would 
not permit them to be erected in any of the provinces, 
unless in the joint names of himself and Rome. Within 
the limits of the city, he positively refused any honour of 
that kind. He melted down all the silver statues which 
had been erected to him, and converted the whole into 
tripods, which he consecrated to the Palatine Apollo. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 125 

And when the people importuned him to accept the dic- 
tatorship, he bent down on one knee, with his toga 
thrown over his shoulders, and his breast exposed to 
view, begging to be excused. 

LIII. He always abhorred the title of Lord} as ill- 
omened and offensive. And when, in a play, performed 
at the theatre, at which he was present, these words were 
introduced, " O just and gracious lord," and the whole 
company, with joyful acclamations, testified their appro- 
bation of them, as applied to him, he instantly put a stop 
to their indecent flattery, by waving his hand, and frown- 
ing sternly, and next day publicly declared his displea- 
sure, in a proclamation. He never afterwards would suf- 
fer himself to be addressed in that manner, even by his 
own children or grand-children, either in jest or earnest, 
and forbad them the use of all such complimentary ex- 
pressions to one another. He rarely entered any city or 
town, or departed from it, except in the evening or the 
night, to avoid giving any person the trouble of compli- 
menting him. During his consulships, he commonly 
walked the streets on foot ; but at other times, rode in a 
close carriage. He admitted to court even plebeians, in 
common with people of the higher ranks : receiving the 
petitions of those who approached him with so much affa- 
bility, that he once jocosely rebuked a man, by telling 
him, " You present your memorial with as much hesita- 
tion as if you were offering money to an elephant." On 
senate days, he used to pay his respects to the Conscript 
Fathers only in the house, addressing them each by name 
as they sat, without any prompter ; and on his departure, 

^ertullian, in his Apology, c. 34, makes the same remark. The 
word seems to have conveyed then, as it does in its theological sense 
now, the idea of Divinity, for it is coupled with Deus, God : nunquum 
se dominwn vel deum appellai-e voluerit. 



126 SUETONIUS. 

he bade each of them farewell, while they retained their 
seats. In the same manner, he maintained with many of 
them a constant intercourse of mutual civilities, giving 
them his company upon occasions of any particular fes- 
tivity in their families ; until he became advanced in 
years, and was incommoded by the crowd at a wedding. 
Being informed that Gallus Terrinius, a senator, with 
whom he had only a slight acquaintance, had suddenly 
lost his sight, and under that privation had resolved to 
starve himself to death, he paid him a visit, and by his 
consolatory admonitions diverted him from his purpose. 

LIV. On his speaking in the senate, he has been told 
by one of the members, " I did not understand you," and 
by another, " I would contradict you, could I do it with 
safety." And sometimes, upon his being so much offended 
at the heat with which the debates were conducted in the 
senate, as to quit the house in anger, some of the mem- 
bers have repeatedly exclaimed : " Surely, the senators 
ought to have liberty of speech on matters of govern- 
ment." Antistius Labeo, in the election of a new senate, 
when each, as he was named, chose another, nominated 
Marcus Lepidus, who had formerly been Augustus's ene- 
my, and was then in banishment ; and being asked by the 
latter, " Is there no other person more deserving ?" he 
replied, " Every man has his own opinion." Nor was 
any one ever molested for his freedom of speech, although 
it was carried to the extent of insolence. 

LV. Even when some infamous libels against him were 
dispersed in the senate-house, he was neither disturbed, 
nor did he give himself much trouble to refute them. He 
would not so much as order an inquiry to be made after 
the authors ; but only proposed, that, for the future, those 
who published libels, or lampoons, in a borrowed name, 
against any person, should be called to account. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 127 

LVI. Being provoked by some petulant jests, which 
were designed to render him odious, he answered them 
by a proclamation ; and yet he prevented the senate from 
passing an act, to restrain the liberties which were taken 
with others in people's wills. Whenever he attended at 
the election of magistrates, he went round the tribes, with 
the candidates of his nomination, and begged the votes 
of the people in the usual manner. He likewise gave his 
own vote in his tribe, as one of the people. He suffered 
himself to be summoned as a witness upon trials, and not 
only to be questioned, but to be cross-examined, with the 
utmost patience. In building his Forum, he restricted 
himself in the site, not presuming to compel the owners 
of the neighbouring houses to give up their property. 
He never recommended his sons to the people, without 
adding these words. " If they deserve it." And upon 
the audience rising on their entering the theatre, while 
they were yet minors, and giving them applause in a 
standing position, he made it a matter of serious com- 
plaint. 

He was desirous that his friends should be great and 
powerful in the state, but have no exclusive privileges, or 
be exempt from the laws which governed others. When 
Asprenas Nonius, an intimate friend of his, was tried 
upon a charge of administering poison at the instance of 
Cassius Severus, he consulted the senate for their opinion 
what was his duty under the circumstances ; " For," said 
he, " I am afraid, lest, if I should stand by him in the 
cause, I may be supposed to screen a guilty man ; and if 
I do not, to desert and prejudge a friend." With the 
unanimous concurrence, therefore, of the senate, he took 
his seat amongst his advocates for several hours, but 
without giving him the benefit of speaking to character, 
as was usual. He likewise appeared for his clients ; as 



123 SUETONIUS. 

on behalf of Scutarius, an old soldier of his, who brought 
an action for slander. He never relieved any one from 
prosecution but in a single instance, in the case of a man 
who had given information of the conspiracy of Mursena ; 
and that he did only by prevailing upon the accuser, in 
open court, to drop his prosecution. 

LVII. How much he was beloved for his worthy con- 
duct in all these respects, it is easy to imagine. I say 
nothing of the decrees of the senate in his honour, which 
may seem to have resulted from compulsion or deference. 
The Roman knights voluntarily, and with one accord, 
always celebrated his birth for two days together ; and 
all ranks of the people yearly, in performance of a vow 
they had made, threw a piece of money into the Curtian 
lake, 1 as an offering for his welfare. They likewise, on 
the calends [first] of January, presented for his accept- 
ance new-year's gifts in the capitol, though he was not 
present: with which donations he purchased some costly 
images of the Gods, which he erected in several streets 
of the city : as that of Apollo Sandaliarius, Jupiter Tra- 
gcedus, 2 and others. When his house on the Palatine hill 
was accidentally destroyed by fire, the veteran soldiers, 
the judges, the tribes, and even the people, individually, 
contributed, according to the ability of each, for rebuilding 
it ; but he would accept only of some small portion out 
of the several sums collected, and refused to take from 
any one person more than a single denarius. Upon his 
return home from any of the provinces, they attended 
him not only with joyful acclamations, but with songs. It 
is also remarked, that as often as he entered the city, the 
infliction of punishment was suspended for the time. 

1 An inclosure in the middle of the Forum, marking the spot where 
Curtius leapt into the lake, which had been long since filled up. 

2 Sanda/arium, Tragoedum ; names of streets, in which temples of 
these gods stood ; as we now say St. Peter, Cornhill, &c. 




FE 



EBBIl- 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 129 

LVIII. The whole body of the people, upon a sudden 
impulse, and with unanimous consent, offered him the title 
of Father of his Country. It was announced to him 
first at Antium, by a deputation from the people, and 
upon his declining the honour, they repeated their offer 
on his return to Rome, in a full theatre, when they were 
crowned with laurel. The senate soon afterwards adopted 
the proposal, not in the way of acclamation or decree, 
but by commissioning M. Messala, in an unanimous vote, 
to compliment him with it in the following terms: "With 
hearty wishes for the happiness and prosperity of yourself 
and family, Caesar Augustus, (for we think we thus most 
effectually pray for the lasting welfare of the state), the 
senate, in agreement with the Roman people, salute you 
by the title of Father of your Country." To this com- 
pliment Augustus replied, with tears in his eyes, in these 
words (for I give them exactly as I have done those of 
Messala) : " Having now arrived at the summit of my 
wishes, O Conscript Fathers, what else have I to beg of 
the Immortal Gods, but the continuance of this your af- 
fection for me to the last moments of my life ?" 

To the physician Antonius Musa, who had cured him 
of a dangerous illness, they erected a statue near that of 
^Esculapius, by a general subscription. Some heads of 
families ordered in their wills, that their heirs should lead 
victims to the capitol, with a tablet carried before them, 
and pay their vows, " Because Augustus still survived." 
Some Italian cities appointed the day upon which he first 
visited them, to be thenceforth the beginning of their year. 
And most of the provinces, besides erecting temples and 
altars, instituted games, to be celebrated to his honour, in 
most towns, every five years. 

The kings, his friends and allies, built cities in their re- 
spective kingdoms, to which they gave the name of Caes- 
9 



1 3 o SUETONIUS. 

area; and all with one consent resolved to finish, at their 
common expense, the temple of Jupiter Olympius, at 
Athens, which had been begun long before, and conse- 
crate it to his Genius. They frequently also left their 
kingdoms, laid aside the badges of royalty, and assuming 
the toga, attended and paid their respects to him daily, in 
the manner of clients to their patrons ; not only at Rome, 
but when he was travelling through the provinces. 

LIX. Having thus given an account of the manner in 
which he filled his public offices both civil and military, 
and his conduct in the government of the empire, both in 
peace and war ; I shall now describe his private and do- 
mestic life, his habits at home and among his friends and 
dependents, and the fortune attending him in those scenes 
of retirement, from his youth to the day of his death. He 
lost his mother in his first consulship, and his sister Octa- 
via, when he was in the fifty-fourth year of his age. 1 He 
behaved towards them both with the utmost kindness 
whilst living, and after their decease paid the highest hon- 
ours to their memory. 

LX. He was contracted when very young to the daugh- 
ter of Publius Servilius Isauricus ; but upon his reconcilia- 
tion with Antony after their first rupture, 2 the armies on 
both sides insisting on a family alliance between them, he 
married Antony's step-daughter Claudia, the daughter of 
Fulvia by Publius Claudius, although at that time she was 
scarcely marriageable ; and upon a difference arising with 
his mother-in-law Fulvia, he divorced her untouched, and 
a pure virgin. Soon afterwards he took to wife Scribo- 
nia, who had before been twice married to men of con- 
sular rank, 3 and was a mother by one of them. With her 

1 a.u.c. 711. 2 See cc. x. xi. xii. and xiii. 

3 One of them was Scipio, the father of Cornelia, whose death is 
lamented by Propertius, iv. 12. The other is unknown. 



CiESAR AUGUSTUS. 131 

he likewise parted, 1 being quite tired out, as he himself 
writes, with the perverseness of her temper; and imme- 
diately took Livia Drusilla, though then pregnant, from 
her husband Tiberius Nero ; and she had never any rival 
in his love and esteem. 

LXI. By Scribonia he had a daughter named Julia, but 
no children by Livia, although extremely desirous of issue. 
She, indeed, conceived once, but miscarried. He gave 
his daughter Julia in the first instance to Marcellus, his 
sister's son, who had just completed his minority; and, 
after his death, to Marcus Agrippa, having prevailed with 
his sister to yield her son-in-law to his wishes ; for at that 
time Agrippa was married to one of the Marcellas, and 
had children by her. Agrippa dying also, he for a long 
time thought of several matches for Julia in even the 
equestrian order, and at last resolved upon selecting 
Tiberius for his step-son ; and he obliged him to part 
with his wife at that time pregnant, and who had already 
brought him a child. Mark Antony writes, " That he first 
contracted Julia to his son, and afterwards to Cotiso, king 
of Getae, 2 demanding at the same time the king's daugh- 
ter in marriage for himself." 

LXII. He had three grandsons by Agrippa and Julia, 
namely, Cams, Lucius, and Agrippa ; and two grand- 
daughters, Julia and Agrippina. Julia he married to 
Lucius Paulus, the censor's son, and Agrippina to Ger- 
manicus, his sister's grandson. Caius and Lucius he 
adopted at home, by the ceremony of purchase 3 from 

1 a.u.c. 715. 

2 He is mentioned by Horace : 

Occidit Daci Cotisonis agimen. Ode 8, b. iii. 
Most probably Antony knew the imputation to be unfounded, and made 
it for the purpose of excusing his own marriage with Cleopatra. 

3 This form of adoption consisted in a fictitious sale. See Cicero, 
Topic iii. 



1 32 SUETONIUS. 

their father, advanced them, while yet very young, to 
offices in the state, and when they were consuls-elect, 
sent them to visit the provinces and armies. In bringing 
up his daughter and grand-daughters, he accustomed 
them to domestic employments, and even spinning, and 
obliged them to speak and act every thing openly before 
the family, that it might be put down in the diary. He 
so strictly prohibited them from all converse with stran- 
gers, that he once wrote a letter to Lucius Vinicius, a 
handsome young man of a good family, in which he told 
him, " You have not behaved very modestly, in making a 
visit to my daughter at Baise." He usually instructed his 
grandsons himself in reading, swimming, and other rudi- 
ments of knowledge ; and he laboured nothing more than 
to perfect them in the imitation of his hand-writing. He 
never supped but he had them sitting at the foot of his 
couch; nor ever travelled but with them in a chariot 
before him, or riding beside him. 

LXIII. But in the midst of all his joy and hopes in his 
numerous and well-regulated family, his fortune failed 
him. The two Julias, his daughter and grand-daughter, 
abandoned themselves to such courses of lewdness and 
debauchery, that he banished them both. Caius and Lu- 
cius he lost within the space of eighteen months ; the 
former dying in Lycia, and the latter at Marseilles. His 
third grandson Agrippa, with his step-son Tiberius, he 
adopted in the forum, by a law passed for the purpose by 
the sections j 1 but he soon afterwards discarded Agrippa 
for his coarse and unruly temper, and confined him at Sur- 
rentum. He bore the death of his relations with more 

1 Curies. Romulus divided the people of Rome into three tribes; 
and each tribe into ten Curia. The number of tribes was afterwards 
increased by degrees to thirty-five ; but that of the Curies always re- 
mained the same. 



CiESAR AUGUSTUS. 133 

patience than he did their disgrace ; for he was not over- 
whelmed by the loss of Caius and Lucius ; but in the case 
of his daughter, he stated the facts to the senate in a mes- 
sage read to them by the quaestor, not having the heart 
to be present himself; indeed, he was so much ashamed 
of her infamous conduct, that for some time he avoided 
all company, and had thoughts of putting her to death. 
It is certain that when one Phcebe, a freed-woman and 
confidant of hers, hanged herself about the same time, he 
said, " I had rather be the father of Phcebe than of Julia." 
In her banishment he would not allow her the use of wine, 
nor any luxury in dress ; nor would he suffer her to be 
waited upon by any male servant, either freeman or 
slave, without his permission, and having received an 
exact account of his age, stature, complexion, and what 
marks or scars he had about him. At the end of five 
years he removed her from the island [where she was 
confined] to the continent, 1 and treated her with less 
severity, but could never be prevailed upon to recall her. 
When the Roman people interposed on her behalf sev- 
eral times with much importunity, all the reply he gave 
was : " I wish you had all such daughters and wives as 
she is." He likewise forbad a child, of which his grand- 
daughter Julia was delivered after sentence had passed 
against her, to be either owned as a relation, or brought 
up. Agrippa, who was equally intractable, and whose 
folly increased every day, he transported to an island, 2 
and placed a guard of soldiers about him ; procuring at 
the same time an act of the senate for his confinement 

1 She was removed to Reggio in Calabria. 

2 Agrippa was first banished to the little desolate island of Planasia, 
now Pianosa. It is one of the group in the Tuscan sea, between Elba 
and Corsica. 



i 3 4 SUETONIUS. 

there during life. Upon any mention of him and the two 
Julias, he would say, with a heavy sigh, 

Would I were wifeless, or had childless died ! * 

nor did he usually call them by any other name than that 
of his " three imposthumes or cancers." 

LXIV. He was cautious in forming friendships, but 
clung to them with great constancy; not only rewarding 
the virtues and merits of his friends according to their 
deserts, but bearing likewise with their faults and vices, 
provided that they were of a venial kind, For amongst 
all his friends, we scarcely find any who fell into disgrace 
with him, except Salvidienus Rufus, whom he raised to the 
consulship, and Cornelius Gallus, whom he made prefect 
in Egypt ; both of them men of the lowest extraction. 
One of these, being engaged in plotting a rebellion, he 
delivered over to the senate, for condemnation ; and the 
other, on account of his ungrateful and malicious temper, 
he forbad his house, and his living in any of the provinces. 
When, however, Gallus, being denounced by his accusers, 
and sentenced by the senate, was driven to the desperate 
extremity of laying violent hands upon himself, he com- 
mended, indeed, the attachment to his person of those 
who manifested so much indignation, but he shed tears, 
and lamented his unhappy condition, " That I alone," said 
he, " cannot be allowed to resent the misconduct of my 
friends in such a way only as I would wish." The rest of 
his friends of all orders flourished during their whole 
lives, both in power and wealth, in the highest ranks of 
their several orders, notwithstanding some occassional 
lapses. For, to say nothing of others, he sometimes com- 

1 A quotation from the Iliad, 40, iii. ; where Hector is venting his 
rage on Paris. The inflexion is slightly changed, the line in the origi- 
nal commencing, "Aid' dyzXeq, &c, would thou wert, &c. 



CJESAK AUGUSTUS. 135 

plained that Agrippa was hasty, and Maecenas a tattler ; 
the former having thrown up all his employments and re- 
tired to Mitylene, on suspicion of some slight coolness, 
and from jealousy that Marcellus received greater marks 
of favour; and the latter having confidentially imparted 
to his wife Terentia the discovery of Muraena's conspiracy. 

He likewise expected from his friends, at their deaths 
as well as during their lives, some proofs of their recip- 
rocal attachment. For though he was far from coveting 
their property, and indeed would never accept of any 
legacy left him by a stranger, yet he pondered in a mel- 
ancholy mood over their last words ; not being able to 
conceal his chagrin, if in their wills they made but a slight, 
or no very honourable mention of him, nor his joy, on the 
other hand, if they expressed a grateful sense of his fa- 
vours, and a hearty affection for him. And whatever leg- 
acies or shares of their property were left for him by such 
as were parents, he used to restore to their children, 
either immediately, or if they were under age, upon the 
day of their assuming the manly dress, or of their mar- 
riage ; with interest. 

LXV. As a patron and master, his behaviour in gen- 
eral was mild and conciliating; but when occasion re- 
quired it, he could be severe. He advanced many of his 
freedmen to posts of honour and great importance, as 
Licinus, Enceladus, and others ; and when his slave, Cos- 
mus, had reflected bitterly upon him, he resented the in- 
jury no further than by putting him in fetters. When his 
steward, Diomedes, left him to the mercy of a wild boar, 
which suddenly attacked them while they were talking to- 
gether, he considered it rather a cowardice than a breach 
of duty; and turned an occurrence of no small hazard 
into a jest, because there was no knavery in his steward's 
conduct. He put to death Proculus, one of his most fa- 



136 SUETONIUS. 

vourite freedmen, for maintaining a criminal commerce 
with other men's wives. He broke the legs of his secre- 
tary, Thallus, for taking a bribe of five hundred denarii 
to discover the contents of one of his letters. And the 
tutor and other attendants of his son Caius, having taken 
advantage of his sickness and death, to give loose to their 
insolence and rapacity in the province he governed, he 
caused heavy weights to be tied about their necks, and 
had them thrown into a river. 

LXVI. In his early youth various aspersions of an in- 
famous character were heaped upon him. Sextus Pom- 
pey reproached him with being an effeminate fellow; and 
M. Antony, with earning his adoption from his uncle 
by improper means. Lucius Antony, likewise Mark's 
brother, charges him with the same. 

LXVII. That he was guilty of various acts of adultery, 
is not denied even by his friends; but they allege in ex- 
cuse for it, that he engaged in those intrigues not from 
lewdness, but from policy, in order to discover more eas- 
ily the designs of his enemies, through their wives. Mark 
Antony, besides the precipitate marriage of Livia, charges 
him with taking the wife of a man of consular rank from 
table, in the presence of her husband, into a bed-chamber, 
and bringing her again to the entertainment, with her ears 
very red, and her hair in great disorder : that he had di- 
vorced Scribonia, for resenting too freely the excessive 
influence which one of his mistresses had gained over 
him: that his friends were employed to pimp for him, and 
accordingly obliged both matrons and ripe virgins to strip, 
for a complete examination of their persons, in the same 
manner as if Thoranius, the dealer in slaves, had them 
under sale. And before they came to an open rupture, 
he writes to him in a familiar manner, thus: " Why are 
you changed towards me? Because I lie with a queen ? 



OESAR AUGUSTUS. 137 

She is my wife. Is this a new thing with me, or have I 
not done so for these nine years ? And do you take free- 
doms with Drusilla only ? May health and happiness so 
attend you, and when you read this letter, you are not in 
dalliance with Tertulla, Terentilla, Rufilla, 1 or Salvia Titis- 
cenia, or all of them. What matters it to you where, or 
upon whom, you spend your manly vigour?" 

LXVIII. A private entertainment which he gave, com- 
monly called the Supper of the Twelve Gods, 2 and at 
which the guests were dressed in the habit of gods and 
goddesses, while he personated Apollo himself, afforded 
subject of much conversation, and was imputed to him not 
only by Antony in his letters, who likewise names all the 
parties concerned, but in the following well-known anony- 
mous verses : — 

Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa choragum, 

Sexque deos vidit Mallia, sexque deas 
Impia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit, 

Dum nova divorum ccenat adulteria : 
Omnia se a terris tunc numina declinarunt : 

Fugit et auratos Jupiter ipse thronos. 

When Mallia late beheld, in mingled train, 
Twelve mortals ape twelve deities in vain ; 
Caesar assumed what was Apollo's due, 
And wine and lust inflamed the motley crew. 
At the foul sight the gods avert their eyes, 
And from his throne great Jove indignant flies. 

What rendered this supper more obnoxious to public 
censure, was, that it happened at a time when there was 

1 Mark Antony makes use of fondling diminutives of the names of 
Tertia, Terentia, and Rufa, some of Augustus's favourites. 

2 Awdsxddeoq ; the twelve Dii Majores ; they are enumerated in two 
verses by Ennius : — 

Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars ; 
Mercurius, Jovus, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo. 



138 SUETONIUS. 

a great scarcity, and almost a famine, in the city. The 
day after, there was a cry current among the people, 
" that the gods had eaten up all the corn ; and that Caesar 
was indeed Apollo, but Apollo the Tormentor;" under 
which title that god was worshipped in some quarter of 
the city. 1 He was likewise charged with being exces- 
sively fond of fine furniture, and Corinthian vessels, as 
well as with being addicted to gaming. For, during the 
time of the proscription, the following line was written 
upon his statue : — 

Pater argentarius, ego Corinthiarius ; 
My father was a silversmith, 2 my dealings are in brass ; 

because it was believed, that he had put some persons 
upon the list of the proscribed, only to obtain the Corin- 
thian vessels in their possession. And afterwards, in the 
Sicilian war, the following epigram was published : — 

Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit, 
Aliquando ut vincat, ludit assidue aleam. 

Twice having lost a fleet in luckless fight, 
To win at last, he games both day and night. 

LXIX. With respect to the charge or imputation of 
loathsome impurity before-mentioned, he very easily re- 
futed it by the chastity of his life, at the very time when 
it was made, as well as ever afterwards. His conduct 

1 Probably in the Suburra, where Martial informs us that torturing 
scourges were sold : 

Tonstrix Suburrse faucibus sed et primis, 
Cruenta pendent qua flagella tortorum. 

Mart. xi. 15, 1. 

2 Like the gold and silver-smiths of the middle ages, the Roman 
money-lenders united both trades. See afterwards Nero, c. 5. It is 
hardly necessary to remark that vases or vessels of the compound metal 
which went by the name of Corinthian brass, or bronze, were esteemed 
even more valuable than silver plate. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 139 

likewise gave the lie to that of luxurious extravagance in 
his furniture, when, upon the taking of Alexandria, he 
reserved for himself nothing of the royal treasures but a 
porcelain cup, and soon afterwards melted down all the 
vessels of gold, even such as were intended for common 
use. But his amorous propensities never left him, and, as 
he grew older, as is reported, he was in the habit of de- 
bauching young girls, who were procured for him, from 
all quarters, even by his own wife. To the observations 
on his gaming, he paid not the smallest regard ; but 
played in public, but purely for his diversion, even when 
he was advanced in years ; and not only in the month of 
December, 1 but at other times, and upon all days, whe- 
ther festivals or not. This evidently appears from a let- 
ter under his own hand, in which he says, " I supped, my 
dear Tiberius, with the same company. We had, besides, 
Vinicius, and Silvius the father. We gamed at supper 
like old fellows, both yesterday and to-day. And as any 
one threw upon the tali 1 aces or sixes, he put down 
for every talus a denarius; all which was gained by him 
who threw a Venus." 3 In another letter, he says : "We 
had, my dear Tiberius, a pleasant time of it during the 
festival of Minerva : for we played every day, and kept 
the gaming-board warm. Your brother uttered many 
exclamations at a desperate run of ill-fortune ; but re- 
covering by degrees, and unexpectedly, he in the end 

1 See c. xxxii. and note. 

2 The Romans, at their feasts, during the intervals of drinking, often 
played at dice, of which there were two kinds, the tessera and tali. 
The former had six sides, like the modern dice ; the latter, four oblong 
sides, for the two ends were not regarded. In playing, they used three 
tesseroe and four tali, which were all put into a box wider below than 
above, and being shaken, were thrown out upon the gaming-board or 
table. 

3 The highest cast was so called. 



i 4 o SUETONIUS. 

lost not much. I lost twenty thousand sesterces for my 
part ; but then I was profusely generous in my play, as I 
commonly am ; for had I insisted upon the stakes which I 
declined, or kept what I gave away, I should have won 
about fifty thousand. But this I like better: for it will 
raise my character for generosity to the skies." In a let- 
ter to his daughter, he writes thus : " I have sent you two 
hundred and fifty denarii, which I gave to every one of my 
guests; in case they were inclined at supper to divert them- 
selves with the Tali, or at the game of Even-or-Odd." 

LXX. In other matters, it appears that he was mod- 
erate in his habits, and free from suspicion of any kind 
of vice. He lived at first near the Roman Forum, above 
the Ring-maker's Stairs, in a house which had once been 
occupied by Calvus the orator. He afterwards moved to 
the Palatine Hill, where he resided in a small house 1 be- 
longing to Hortensius, no way remarkable either for size 
or ornament ; the piazzas being but small, the pillars of 
Alban stone, 2 and the rooms without any thing of marble, 
or fine paving. He continued to use the same bed-cham- 
ber, both winter and summer, during forty years: 3 for 
though he was sensible that the city did not agree with 
his health in the winter, he nevertheless resided constantly 
in it during that season. If at any time he wished to be 
perfectly retired, and secure from interruption, he shut 
himself up in an apartment at the top of his house, which 
he called his Syracuse or Tzyybyuov? or he went to some 

1 Enlarged by Tiberius and succeeding emperors. The ruins of the 
palace of the Cassars are still seen on the Palatine. 

2 Probably travertine, a soft limestone, from the Alban Mount, which 
was, therefore, cheaply procured and easily worked. 

3 It was usual among the Romans to have separate sets of apartments 
for summer and winter use, according to their exposure to the sun. 

4 This word may be interpreted the Cabinet of Arts. It was common, 
in the houses of the great, among the Romans, to have an apartment 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 141 

villa belonging to his freedmen near the city. But when 
he was indisposed, he commonly took up his residence in 
the house of Maecenas. 1 Of all the places of retirement 
from the city, he chiefly frequented those upon the sea- 
coast, and the islands of Campania, 2 or the towns nearest 
the city, such as Lanuvium, Praeneste, and Tibur, 3 where 
he often used to sit for the administration of justice, in 
the porticos of the temple of Hercules. He had a par- 
ticular aversion to large and sumptuous palaces ; and 
some which had been raised at a vast expense by his 
grand-daughter, Julia, he leveled to the ground. Those 
of his own, which were far from being spacious, he 
adorned, not so much with statues and pictures, as with 
walks and groves, and things which were curious either 
for their antiquity or rarity ; such as, at Capri, the huge 
limbs of sea- monsters and wild beasts, which some affect 
to call the bones of giants ; and also the arms of ancient 
heroes. 

called the Study, or Museum. Pliny says, beautifully, " O mare ! O 
littus ! verum secretumque /woeeTov, quam multa invenitis, quam multa 
dictatis?" O sea! O shore ! Thou real and secluded museum; what 
treasures of science do you not discover to us ! — Epist. i. 9. 

1 Maecenas had a house and gardens on the Esquiline Hill, celebrated 
for their salubrity — 

Nunc licet Esquiliis habitore salubribus. — Hor. Sat. i. 8, 14. 

2 Such as Baiae, and the islands of Ischia, Procida, Capri, and others ; 
the resorts of the opulent nobles, where they had magnificent marine 
villas. 

3 Now Tivoli, a delicious spot, where Horace had a villa, in which 
he hoped to spend his declining years. 

Ver ubi longum, tepidasque prsebet 

Jupiter brumas : 

ibi, tu calentem 

Debita sparges lachryma favillam 
Vatis amici. Odes, B. ii. 5. 

Adrian also had a magnificent villa near Tibur. 



142 SUETONIUS. 

LXXI. His frugality in the furniture of his house ap- 
pears even at this day, from some beds and tables still 
remaining, most of which are scarcely elegant enough 
for a private family. It is reported that he never lay 
upon a bed, but such as was low, and meanly furnished. 
He seldom wore any garment but what was made by the 
hands of his wife, sister, daughter, and grand-daughters. 
His togas 1 were neither scanty nor full ; and the davits 
was neither remarkably broad or narrow. His shoes 
were a little higher than common, to make him appear 
taller than he was. He had always clothes and shoes, 
fit to appear in public, ready in his bed-chamber for any 
sudden occasion. 

LXXI I. At his table which was always plentiful and 
elegant, he constantly entertained company; but was very 
scrupulous in the choice of them, both as to rank and 
character. Valerius Messala informs us, that he never 
admitted any freedmen to his table, except Menas, when 
rewarded with the privilege of citizenship, for betraying 
Pompey's fleet. He writes, himself, that he invited to his 
table a person in whose villa he lodged, and who had 
formerly been employed by him as a spy. He often came 

1 The Toga was a loose woollen robe,' which covered the whole body, 
close at the bottom, but open at the top down to the girdle, and with- 
out sleeves. The right arm was thus at liberty, and the left supported 
a flap of the toga, which was drawn up, and thrown back over the left 
shoulder ; forming what is called the Sinus, a fold or cavity upon the 
breast, in which things might be carried, and with which the face or 
head might be occasionally covered. When a person did any work, he 
tucked up his toga, and girt it round him. The toga of the rich and 
noble was finer and larger than that of others; and a new toga was 
called Pexa. None but Roman citizens were permitted to wear the 
toga; and banished persons were prohibited the use of it. The colour 
of the toga was white. The clavus was a purple border, by which the 
senators, and other orders, with the magistrates, were distinguished ; 
the breadth of the stripe corresponding with their rank. 



OdESAR AUGUSTUS. 143 

late to table, and withdrew early ; so that the company 
began supper before his arrival, and continued at table 
after his departure. His entertainments consisted of three 
entries, or at most of only six. But if his fare was mod- 
erate, his courtesy was extreme. For those who were 
silent, or talked in whispers, he encouraged to join in the 
general conversation; and introduced buffoons and stage 
players, or even low performers from the circus, and very 
often itinerant humourists, to enliven the company. 

LXXIII. Festivals and holidays he usually celebrated 
very expensively, but sometimes only with merriment. 
In the Saturnalia, or at any other time when the fancy 
took him, he distributed to his company clothes, gold and 
silver; sometimes coins of all sorts, even of the ancient 
kings of Rome and of foreign nations; sometimes nothing 
but towels, sponges, rakes, and tweezers, and other things 
of that kind, with tickets on them, which were enigmati- 
cal, and had a double meaning. 1 He used likewise to sell 
by lot among his guests articles of very unequal value, 
and pictures with their fronts reversed ; and so, by the 
unknown quality of the lot, disappoint or gratify the ex- 
pectation of the purchasers. This sort of traffic went 
round the whole company, every one being obliged to buy 
something, and to run the chance of loss or gain with the 
rest. 

LXXIV. He ate sparingly (for I must not omit even 
this), and commonly used a plain diet. He was particu- 
larly fond of coarse bread, small fishes, new cheese made 
of cow's milk, 2 and green figs of the sort which bear 

1 In which the whole humour of the thing consisted either in the 
uses to which these articles were applied, or in their names having in 
Latin a double signification ; matters which cannot be explained with 
any decency. 

2 Casum bubulum manu pressum ; probably soft cheese, not reduced to 
solid consistence in the cheese-press. 



i 4 4 SUETONIUS. 

fruit twice a year. 1 He did not wait for supper, but took 
food at any time, and in any place, when he had an appe- 
tite. The following passages relative to this subject, I 
have transcribed from his letters. " I ate a little bread 
and some small dates, in my carriage." Again. " In re- 
turning home from the palace in my litter, I ate an ounce 
of bread, and a few raisins." Again. " No Jew, my dear 
Tiberius, ever keeps such strict fast upon the Sabbath, 2 as 
I have to-day ; for while in the bath, and after the first 
hour of the night, I only ate two biscuits, before I began 
to be rubbed with oil." From this great indifference 
about his diet, he sometimes supped by himself, before 
his company began, or after they had finished, and would 
not touch a morsel at table with his guests. 

LXXV. He was by nature extremely sparing in the use 
of wine. Cornelius Nepos says, that he used to drink 
only three times at supper in the camp of Modena; and 
when he indulged himself the most, he never exceeded a 
pint ; or if he did his stomach rejected it. Of all wines, 
he gave the preference to the Rhaetian, 3 but scarcely ever 

1 A species of fig tree, known in some places as Adam's fig. We 
have gathered them, in those climates, of the latter crop, as late as the 
month of November. 

2 Sabbatis Jejiinium. Augustus might have been better informed of 
the Jewish rites, from his familiarity with Herod and others ; for it is 
certain that their sabbath was not a day of fasting. Justin, however, 
fell into the same error : he says, that Moses appointed the sabbath-day 
to be kept for ever by the Jews as a fast, in memory of their fasting for 
seven days in the deserts of Arabia, xxxvi. 2. 14. But we find that 
there was a weekly fast among the Jews, which is perhaps what is here 
meant ; the Sabbatis Jejimium being equivalent to the Ntjgtsuw d(q rob 
aapftdroo, l I fast twice in the week ' of the Pharisee, in St. Luke xviii. 12. 

3 The Rhaetian wines had a great reputation ; Virgil says, 

Ex quo te carmine dicam, 

Rhsetica. Georg. ii. 96. 

The vineyards lay at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps ; their produce, we 
have reason to believe, was not a very generous liquor. 




JULIA, 
DAUGHTER OF AUGUSTUS • 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 



x 45 



drank any in the day-time. Instead of drinking, he used 
to take a piece of bread dipped in cold water, or a slice 
of cucumber, or some leaves of lettuce, or a green, sharp, 
juicy apple. 

LXXVI. After a slight repast at noon, he used to seek 
repose, 1 dressed as he was, and with his shoes on, his feet 
covered, and his hand held before his eyes. After supper 
he commonly withdrew to his study, a small closet, where 
he sat late, until he had put down in his diary all or most 
of the remaining transactions of the day, which he had 
not before registered. He would then go to bed, but 
never slept above seven hours at most, and that not 
without interruption ; for he would wake three or four 
times during that time. If he could not again fall asleep, 
as sometimes happened, he called for some one to read 
or tell stories to him, until he became drowsy, and then 
his sleep was usually protracted till after day-break. He 
never liked to lie awake in the dark, without somebody 
to sit by him. Very early rising was apt to disagree with 
him. On which account, if he was obliged to rise betimes, 
for any civil or religious functions, in order to guard as 
much as possible against the inconvenience resulting from 
it, he used to lodge in some apartment near the spot, be- 
longing to any of his attendants. If at any time a fit of 
drowsiness seized him in passing along the streets, his lit- 
ter was set down while he snatched a few moments' sleep. 

LXXVII. In person he was handsome and graceful, 
through every period of his life. But he was negligent 
in his dress ; and so careless about dressing his hair, that 
he usually had it done in great haste, by several barbers 
at a time. His beard he sometimes clipped, and some- 
times shaved ; and either read or wrote during the oper- 

1 A custom in all warm countries ; the siesta of the Italians in later 
times. 

10 



i 4 6 SUETONIUS. 

ation. His countenance, either when discoursing or silent, 
was so calm and serene, that a Gaul of the first rank de- 
clared amongst his friends, that he was so softened by it, 
as to be restrained from throwing him down a precipice, 
in his passage over the Alps, when he had been admitted 
to approach him, under pretence of conferring with him. 
His eyes were bright and piercing ; and he was willing it 
should be thought that there was something of a divine 
vigour in them. He was likewise not a little pleased to 
see people, upon his looking stedfastly at them, lower 
their countenances, as if the sun shone in their eyes. But 
in his old age, he saw very imperfectly with his left eye. 
His teeth were thin set, small and scaly, his hair a little 
curled, and inclining to a yellow colour. His eye-brows 
met ; his ears were small, and he had an aquiline nose. 
His complexion was betwixt brown and fair; his stature 
but low; though Julius Marathus, his freedman, says he 
was five feet and nine inches in height. This, however, 
was so much concealed by the just proportion of his limbs, 
that it was only perceivable upon comparison with some 
taller person standing by him. 

LXXVIII. He is said to have been born with many 
spots upon his breast and belly, answering to the figure, 
order, and number of the stars in the constellation of the 
Bear. He had besides several callosities resembling 
scars, occasioned by an itching in his body, and the con- 
stant and violent use of the strigil 1 in being rubbed. He 
had a weakness in his left hip, thigh, and leg, insomuch 
that he often halted on that side; but he received much 
benefit from the use of sand and reeds. He likewise 

1 The strigil was used in the baths for scraping the body when in a 
state of perspiration. It was sometimes made of gold or silver, and not 
unlike in form the instrument used by grooms about horses when pro- 
fusely sweating or splashed with mud. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 147 

sometimes found the fore-finger of his right hand so weak, 
that when it was benumbed and contracted with cold, to 
use it in writing, he was obliged to have recourse to a cir- 
cular piece of horn. He had occasionally a complaint in 
the bladder; but upon voiding some stones in his urine, 
he was relieved from that pain. 

LXXIX. During the whole course of his life, he suf- 
fered, at times, dangerous fits of sickness, especially after 
the conquest of Cantabria; when his liver being injured 
by a defluxion upon it, he was reduced to such a condi- 
tion, that he was obliged to undergo a desperate and 
doubtful method of cure : for warm applications having 
no effect, Antonius Musa 1 directed the use of those which 
were cold. He was likewise subject to fits of sickness at 
stated times every year ; for about his birth-day 2 he was 
commonly a little indisposed. In the beginning of spring, 
he was attacked with an inflation of the midriff; and when 
the wind was southerly, with a cold in his head. By all 
these complaints, his constitution was so shattered, that 
he could not easily bear either heat or cold. 

LXXX. In the winter, he was protected against the 
inclemency of the weather by a thick toga, four tunics, 
a shirt, a flannel stomacher, and swathings upon his legs 
and thighs. 3 In summer, he lay with the doors of his bed- 
chamber open, and frequently in a piazza, refreshed by a 

1 His physician, mentioned c. lviii. 

2 September 21st, a sickly season at Rome. 

3 Feminalibus et tibialibus : Neither the ancient Romans or the Greeks 
wore breeches, trews, or trowsers, which they despised as barbarian ar- 
ticles of dress. The coverings here mentioned were swathings for the 
legs and thighs, used mostly in cases of sickness or infirmity, and when 
otherwise worn, reckoned effeminate. But soon after the Romans be- 
came acquainted with the German and Celtic nations, the habit of cover- 
ing the lower extremities, barbarous as it had been held, was generally 
adopted. 



1 48 SUETONIUS. 

bubbling fountain, and a person standing by to fan him. 
He could not bear even the winter's sun ; and at home, 
never walked in the open air without a broad-brimmed 
hat on his head. He usually travelled in a litter, and by 
night; and so slow, that he was two days in going to 
Praeneste or Tibur. And if he could go to any place by 
sea, he preferred that mode of travelling. He carefully 
nourished his health against his many infirmities, avoiding 
chiefly the free use of the bath ; but he was often rubbed 
with oil, and sweated in a stove ; after which he was 
washed with tepid water, warmed either by a fire, or by 
being exposed to the heat of the sun. When, upon ac- 
count of his nerves, he was obliged to have recourse to 
sea- water, or the waters of Albula, 1 he was contented with 
sitting over a wooden tub, which he called by a Spanish 
name Dureta, and plunging his hands and feet in the 
water by turns. 

LXXXI. As soon as the civil wars were ended, he 
gave up riding and other military exercises in the Campus 
Martius, and took to playing at ball, or foot-ball ; but 
soon afterwards used no other exercise than that of going 
abroad in his litter, or walking. Towards the end of his 
walk, he would run leaping, wrapped up in a short cloak 
or cape. For amusement, he would sometimes angle, or 
play with dice, pebbles, or nuts, with little boys, collected 
from various countries, and particularly Moors and Syr- 
ians, for their beauty or amusing talk. But dwarfs, and 
such as were in anyway deformed, he held in abhorrence, 
as lusus 7taturcz (nature's abortions), and of evil omen. 

1 Albula. On the left of the road to Tivoli, near the ruins of Adrian's 
villa. The waters are sulphureous, and the deposit from -them causes 
incrustations on twigs and other matters plunged in the springs. See a 
curious account of this stream in Gell's Topography, published by Bohn, 
p. 40. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 149 

LXXXII. From early youth he devoted himself with 
great diligence and application to the study of eloquence, 
and the other liberal arts. In the war of Modena, not- 
withstanding the weighty affairs in which he was engaged, 
he is said to have read, written, and declaimed every day. 
He never addressed the senate, the people, or the army, 
but in a premeditated speech, though he did not want the 
talent of speaking extempore on the spur of the occa- 
sion. And lest his memory should fail him, as well as to 
prevent the loss of time in getting up his speeches, it was 
his general practice to recite them. In his intercourse with 
individuals, and even with his wife Livia, upon subjects of 
importance he wrote on his tablets all he wished to ex- 
press, lest, if he spoke extempore, he should say more or 
less than was proper. He delivered himself in a sweet 
and peculiar tone, in which he was diligently instructed by 
a master of elocution. But when he had a cold, he some- 
times employed a herald to deliver his speeches to the 
people. 

LXXXIII. He composed many tracts in prose on va- 
rious subjects, some of which he read occasionally in the 
circle of his friends, as to an auditory. Among these was 
his " Rescript to Brutus respecting Cato." Most of the 
pages he read himself, although he was advanced in 
years, but becoming fatigued, he gave the rest to Tibe- 
rius to finish. He likewise read over to his friends his 
" Exhortations to Philosophy," and the " History of his 
own Life," which he continued in thirteen books, as far as 
the Cantab rian war, but no farther. He likewise made 
some attempts at poetry. There is extant one book writ- 
ten by him in hexameter verse, of which both the subject 
and title is " Sicily." There is also a book of Epigrams, 
no larger than the last, which he composed almost en- 
tirely while he was in the bath. These are all his poetical 



150 SUETONIUS. 

compositions : for though he begun a tragedy with great 
zest, becoming dissatisfied with the style, he obliterated 
the whole ; and his friends saying to him, " What is your 
Ajax doing ?" he answered, " My Ajax met with a 
sponge." 1 

LXXXIV. He cultivated a style which was neat and 
chaste, avoiding frivolous or harsh language, as well as 
obsolete words, which he calls disgusting. His chief ob- 
ject was to deliver his thoughts with all possible perspi- 
cuity. To attain this end, and that he might nowhere 
perplex, or retard the reader or hearer, he made no scru- 
ple to add prepositions to his verbs, or to repeat the 
same conjunction several times ; which, when omitted, 
occasion some little obscurity, but give a grace. to the 
style. Those who used affected language, or adopted 
obsolete words, he despised, as equally faulty, though in 
different ways. He sometimes indulged himself in jest- 
ing, particularly with his friend Maecenas, whom he rallied 
upon all occasions for his fine phrases, 2 and bantered by 
imitating his way of talking. Nor did he spare Tiberius, 
who was fond of obsolete and far-fetched expressions. 
He charges Mark Antony with insanity, writing rather to 
make men stare, than to be understood ; and by way of 
sarcasm upon his depraved and fickle taste in the choice 
of words, he writes to him thus: "And are you yet in 
doubt, whether Cimber Annius or Veranius Flaccus be 
more proper for your imitation ? Whether you will adopt 
words which Sallustius Crispus has borrowed from the 
'Origines' of Cato? Or do you think that the verbose 

1 In spongam zncubuisse, literally has fallen upon a sponge, as Ajax is 
said to have perished by falling on his own sword. 

2 MupofipsysTs. Suetonius often preserves expressive Greek phrases 
which Augustus was in the habit of using. This compound word means, 
literally, myrrh-scented, perfumed. 



CiESAR AUGUSTUS. 151 

empty bombast of Asiatic orators is fit to be transfused 
into our laneuao-e?" And in a letter where he commends 
the talent of his grand-daughter, Agrippina, he says, 
" But you must be particularly careful, both in writing 
and speaking, to avoid affectation." 

LXXXV. In ordinary conversation, he made use of 
several peculiar expressions, as appears from letters in 
his own hand-writing ; in which, now and then, when he 
means to intimate that some persons would never pay 
their debts, he says, "They will pay at the Greek Cal- 
ends." And when he advised patience in the present 
posture of affairs, he would say, " Let us be content with 
our Cato." To describe anything in haste, he said, " It 
was sooner done than asparagus is cooked." He con- 
stantly puts baceolus for stultus, pullejaceus for pullus, 
vacerrosus for cerritus, vapide se habere for male, and 
betizare for languere, which is commonly called lachani- 
zare. Likewise simus for sumus, domos for domus in the 
genitive singular. 1 With respect to the last two pecu- 
liarities, lest any person should imagine that they were 
only slips of his pen, and not customary with him, he 
never varies. I have likewise remarked this singularity 
in his hand-writinof : he never divides his words, so as to 
carry the letters which cannot be inserted at the end of a 
line to the next, but puts them below the other, enclosed 
by a bracket. 

LXXXVI. He did not adhere strictly to orthography 
as laid down by the grammarians, but seems to have been 
of the opinion of those who think, that we ought to write 
as we speak; for as to his changing and omitting not only 
letters but whole syllables, it is a vulgar mistake. Nor 

1 These are variations of language of small importance, which can 
only be understood in the original language. 



152 SUETONIUS. 

should I have taken notice of it, but that it appears strange 
to me, that any person should have told us, that he sent 
a successor to a consular lieutenant of a province, as an 
ignorant, illiterate fellow, upon his observing that he had 
written ixi for ipsi. When he had occasion to write in 
cypher, he put b for a, c for 6, and so forth ; and instead 
of z> aa. 

LXXXVII. He was no less fond of the Greek literature, 
in which he made considerable proficiency; having had 
Apollodorus of Pergamus, for his master in rhetoric ; 
whom, though much advanced in years, he took with him 
from The City, when he was himself very young, to Apol- 
lonia. 

Afterwards, being instructed in philology by Sephae- 
rus, he received into his family Areus the philosopher, 
and his sons Dionysius and Nicanor ; but he never could 
speak the Greek tongue readily, nor ever ventured to 
compose in it. For if there was occasion for him to 
deliver his sentiments in that language, he always ex- 
pressed what he had to say in Latin, and gave it another 
to translate. He was evidently not unacquainted with 
the poetry of the Greeks, and had a great taste for the 
ancient comedy, which he often brought upon the stage, 
in his public spectacles. In reading the Greek and Latin 
authors, he paid particular attention to precepts and ex- 
amples which might be useful in public or private life. 
Those he used to extract verbatim, and gave to his do- 
mestics, or send to the commanders of the armies, the 
governors of the provinces, or the magistrates of the 
city, when any of them seemed to stand in need of ad- 
monition. He likewise read whole books to the senate, 
and frequently made them known to the people by his 
edicts ; such as the orations of Quintus Metellus " for 
the Encouragement of Marriage," and those of Rutilius 



CLESAR AUGUSTUS. 



53 



" On the Style of Building;" 1 to show the people that he 
was not the first who had promoted those objects, but 
that the ancients likewise had thought them worthy their 
attention. He patronized the men of genius of that age 
in every possible way. He would hear them read their 
works with a great deal of patience and good nature ; 
and not only poetry 2 and history, but orations and dia- 
logues. He was displeased, however, that anything should 
be written upon himself, except in a grave manner, and 
by men of the most eminent abilities : and he enjoined 
the praetors not to suffer his name to be made too com- 
mon in the contests amongst orators and poets in the 
theatres. 

LXXXVIII. We have the following account of him re- 
specting his belief in omens and such like. He had so 
great a dread of thunder and lightning that he always 
carried about him a seal's skin, by way of preservation. 
And upon any apprehension of a violent storm, he would 
retire to some place of concealment in a vault under 
ground ; having formerly been terrified by a flash of 
lightning, while travelling in the night, as we have already 
mentioned 3 

LXXXIX. He neither slighted his own dreams nor 
those of other people relating to himself. At the battle 
of Philippi, although he had resolved not to stir out of his 
tent, on account of his being indisposed, yet, being warned 

1 It may create a smile to hear that, to prevent danger to the public, 
Augustus decreed that no new buildings erected in a public thorough- 
fare should exceed in height seventy feet. Trajan reduced it to sixty. 

2 Virgil is said to have recited before him the whole of the second, 
fourth, and sixth books of the JEneid ; and Octavia, being present, 
when the poet came to the passage referring to her son, commencing, 
"Tu Marrellus eris," was so much affected that she was carried out 
fainting. 

3 Chap. xxix. 



54 



SUETONIUS. 



by a dream of one of his friends, he changed his mind; 
and well it was that he did so, for in the enemy's attack, 
his couch was pierced and cut to pieces, on the supposi- 
tion of his being in it. He had many frivolous and fright- 
ful dreams during the spring ; but in the other parts of 
the year, they were less frequent and more significative. 
Upon his frequently visiting a temple near the Capitol, 
which he had dedicated to Jupiter Tonans, he dreamt that 
Jupiter Capitolinus complained that his worshippers were 
taken from him, and that upon this he replied, he had only 
given him The Thunderer for his porter. 1 He therefore 
immediately suspended little bells round the summit of 
the temple; because such commonly hung at the gates of 
great houses. In consequence of a dream, too, he always, 
on a certain day of the year, begged alms of the people, 
reaching out his hand to receive the dole which they 
offered him. 

XC. Some signs and omens he regarded as infallible. 
If in the morning his shoe was put on wrong, the left in- 
stead of the right, that boded some disaster. If when he 
commenced a long journey, by sea or land, there happen- 
ed to fall a mizzling rain, he held it to be a good sign of a 
speedy and happy return. He was much affected like- 
wise with any thing out of the common course of nature. 
A palm-tree 2 which chanced to grow up between some 
stones in the court of his house, he transplanted into a 
court where the images of the Household Gods were 
placed, and took all possible care to make it thrive. In 

1 Perhaps the point of the reply lay in the temple of Jupiter Tonans 
being placed at the approach to the Capitol from the Forum ? See c. 
xxix. and c. xxx., with the note. 

2 If these trees flourished at Rome in the time of Augustus, the win- 
ters there must have been much milder than they now are. There was 
one solitary palm standing in the garden of a convent some years ago, 
but it was of a very stunted growth. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 155 

the island of Capri, some decayed branches of an old ilex, 
which hung drooping to the ground, recovered themselves 
upon his arrival ; at which he was so delighted, that he 
made an exchange with the Republic 1 of Naples, of the 
island of CEnaria [Ischia], for that of Capri. He like- 
wise observed certain days ; as never to go from home 
the day after the Nundinse, 2 nor to begin any serious busi- 
ness upon the nones ; 3 avoiding nothing else in it, as he 
writes to Tiberius, than its unlucky name. 

XCI. With regard to the religious ceremonies of for- 
eign nations, he was a strict observer of those which had 
been established by ancient custom ; but others he held 
in no esteem. For, having been initiated at Athens, and 
coming afterwards to hear a cause at Rome, relative to 
the privileges of the priests of the Attic Ceres, when some 
of the mysteries of the sacred rites were to be introduced 
in the pleadings, he dismissed those who sat upon the bench 
as judges with him, as well as the by-standers, and heard 
the argument upon those points himself. But, on the 

1 The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns. 

f " The Nimdince occurred every ninth day, when a market was held at 
Rome, and the people came to it from the country. The practice was 
not then introduced amongst the Romans, of dividing their time into 
weeks, as we do, in imitation of the Jews. Dio, who flourished under 
Severus, says that it first took place a little before his time, and was de- 
rived from the Egyptians." — Thomson. A fact, if well founded, of 
some importance. 

3 " The Romans divided their months into calends, nones, and ides. 
The first day of the month. was the calends of that month; whence 
they reckoned backwards, distinguishing the time by the day before the 
calends, the second day before the calends, and so on, to the ides of 
the preceding month. In eight months of the year, the nones were 
the fifth day, and the ides the thirteenth : but in March, May, July, and 
October, the nones fell on the seventh, and the ides on the fifteenth. 
From the nones they reckoned backwards to the calends, as they also 
did from the ides to the nones." — lb. 



156 SUETONIUS. 

other hand, he not only declined, in his progress through 
Egypt, to go out of his way to pay a visit to Apis, but he 
likewise commended his grandson Caius for not paying 
his devotions at Jerusalem in his passage through Judea. 1 

XCII. Since we are upon this subject, it may not be 
improper to give an account of the omens, before and at 
his birth, as well as afterwards, which gave hopes of his 
future greatness, and the good fortune that constantly 
attended him. A part of the wall of Velletri having in 
former times been struck with thunder, the response of 
the soothsayers was, that a native of that town would 
some time or other arrive at supreme power; relying on 
which prediction, the Velletrians both then, and several 
times afterwards, made war upon the Roman people, to 
their own ruin. At last it appeared by the event, that the 
omen had portended the elevation of Augustus. 

Julius Marathus informs us, that a few months before 
his birth, there happened at Rome a prodigy, by which was 
signified that Nature was in travail with a king for the 
Roman people ; and that the senate, in alarm, came to the 
resolution that no child born that year should be brought 
up; but that those amongst them, whose wives were preg- 
nant, to secure to themselves a chance of that dignity, 
took care that the decree of the senate should not be reg- 
istered in the treasury. 

I find in the theological books of Asclepiades the Men- 
desian, 2 that Atia, upon attending at midnight a religious 

1 The early Christians shared with the Jews the aversion of the Ro- 
mans to their religion, more than that of others, arising probably from 
its monotheistic and exclusive character. But we find from Josephus 
and Philo that Augustus was in other respects favourable to the Jews. 

2 Strabo tells us that Mendes was a city of Egypt near Lycopolis. 
Asclepias wrote a book in Greek with the idea of GsoXoyooixevmv, in de- 
fence of some very strange religious rites, of which the example in the 
text is a specimen. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 157 

solemnity in honour of Apollo, when the rest of the ma- 
trons retired home, fell asleep on her couch in the temple, 
and that a serpent immediately crept to her, and soon 
after withdrew. She awaking upon it, purified herself, as 
usual after the embraces of her^husband; and instantly 
there appeared upon her body a mark in the form of a 
serpent, which she never after could efface, and which 
obliged her, during the subsequent part of her life, to 
decline the use of the public baths. Augustus, it was 
added, was born in the tenth month after, and for that 
reason was thought to be the son of Apollo. The same 
Atia, before her delivery, dreamed that her bowels 
stretched to the stars, and expanded through the whole 
circuit of heaven and earth. His father Octavius, like- 
wise, dreamt that a sun-beam issued from his wife's womb. 
Upon the day he was born, the senate being engaged 
in a debate on Catiline's conspiracy, and Octavius, "in 
consequence of his wife's being in childbirth, coming late 
into the house, it is a well-known fact, that Publius Nigi- 
dius, upon hearing the occasion of his coming so late, 
and the hour of his wife's delivery, declared that the 
world had got a master. Afterwards, when Octavius, 
upon marching with his army through the deserts of 
Thrace, consulted the oracle in the grove of father Bac- 
chus, with barbarous rites, concerning his son, he received 
from the priests an answer to the same purpose ; be- 
cause, when they poured wine upon the altar, there burst 
out so prodigious a flame, that it ascended above the 
roof of the temple, and reached up to the heavens ; a 
circumstance which had never happened to any one but 
Alexander the Great, upon his sacrificing at the same 
altars. And the next night he dreamt that he saw his son 
under more than human appearance, with ^thunder and a 
sceptre, and the other insignia of Jupiter, Optimus, Max- 



I5 8 SUETONIUS. 

imus, having on his head a radiant crown, mounted upon 
a chariot decked with laurel, and drawn by six pair of 
milk-white horses. 

Whilst he was yet an infant, as Caius Drusus relates, 
being laid in his cradle by his nurse, and in a low place, the 
next day he was not to be found, and after he had been 
sought for a long time, he was at last discovered upon a 
lofty tower, lying with his face towards the rising sun. 1 
When he first began to speak, he ordered the frogs that 
happened to make a troublesome noise, upon an estate 
belonging to the family near the town, to be silent ; and 
there goes a report that frogs never croaked there since 
that time. As he was dining in a grove at the fourth 
mile-stone on the Campanian road, an eagle suddenly 
snatched a piece of bread out of his hand, and, soaring 
to a prodigious height, after hovering, came down most 
unexpectedly, and returned it to him. 

Quintus Catulus had a dream, for two nights success- 
ively after his dedication of the Capitol. The first night 
he dreamt that Jupiter, out of several boys of the order 
of the nobility, who were playing about his altar, selected 
one, into whose bosom he put the public seal of the com- 
monwealth, which he held in his hand ; but in his vision 
the next night, he saw in the bosom of Jupiter Capito- 
linus, the same boy; whom he ordered to be removed, 
but it was forbidden by the God, who declared that it 
must be brought up to become the guardian of the state. 
The next day, meeting Augustus, with whom till that 
hour he had not the least acquaintance, and looking at 
him with admiration, he said he was extremely like the 
boy he had seen in his dream. Some give a different ac- 
count of Catulus's first dream, namely, that Jupiter, upon 

1 Velletri stands on very high ground, commanding extensive views 
of the Pontine marshes and the sea. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 159 

several noble lads requesting of him that they might have 
a guardian, had pointed to one amongst them, to whom 
they were to prefer their requests ; and putting his fingers 
to the boy's mouth to kiss, he afterwards applied them to 
his own. 

Marcus Cicero, as he was attending Caius Caesar to 
the Capitol, happened to be telling some of his friends a 
dream which he had the preceding night, in which he saw 
a comely youth, let down from heaven by a golden chain, 
who stood at the door of the Capitol, and had a whip put 
into his hands by Jupiter. And immediately upon sight 
of Augustus, who had been sent for by his uncle Caesar 
to the sacrifice, and was as yet perfectly unknown to most 
of the company, he affirmed that it was the very boy he 
had seen in his dream. When he assumed the manly 
toga, his senatorian tunic becoming loose in the seam on 
each side, fell at his feet. Some would have this to for- 
bode, that the order, of which that was the badge of dis- 
tinction, would some time or other be subject to him. 

Julius Caesar, in cutting down a wood to make room 
for his. camp near Munda, 1 happened to light upon a 
palm-tree, and ordered it to be preserved as an omen of 
victory. From the root of this tree there put out imme- 
diately a sucker, which, in a few days, grew to such a 
height as not only to equal, but overshadow it, and afford 
room for many nests of wild pigeons which built in it, 
though that species of bird particularly avoids a hard 
and rough leaf. It is likewise reported, that Caesar was 
chiefly influenced by this prodigy, to prefer his sister's 
grandson before all others for his successor. 

In his retirement at Apollonia, he went with his friend 
Agrippa to visit Theogenes, the astrologer, in his gallery 

1 Munda was a city in the Hispania Bcetica, where Julius Caesar fought 
a battle. See c. lvi. 



160 SUETONIUS. 

on the roof. Agrippa, who first consulted the fates, hav- 
ing great and almost incredible fortunes predicted of him, 
Augustus did not choose to make known his nativity, and 
persisted for some time in the refusal, from a mixture of 
shame and fear, lest his fortunes should be predicted as 
inferior to those of Agrippa. Being persuaded, however, 
after much importunity, to declare it, Theogenes started 
up from his seat, and paid him adoration. Not long after- 
wards, Augustus was so confident of the greatness of his 
destiny, that he published his horoscope, and struck a sil- 
ver coin, bearing upon it the sign of Capricorn, under 
the influence of which he was born. 

XCIII. After the death of Caesar, upon his return from 
Apollonia, as he was entering the city, on a sudden, in a 
clear and bright sky, a circle resembling the rainbow sur- 
rounded the body of the sun; and, immediately after- 
wards, the tomb of Julia, Caesar's daughter, was struck 
by lightning. In his first consulship, whilst he was ob- 
serving the auguries, twelve vultures presented them- 
selves, as they had done to Romulus. And when he of- 
fered sacrifice, the livers of all the victims were folded in- 
ward in the lower part ; a circumstance which was re- 
garded by those present, who had skill in things of that 
nature, as an indubitable prognostic of great and won- 
derful fortune. 

XCIV. He certainly had a presentiment of the issue of 
all his wars. When the troops of the Triumviri were col- 
lected about Bolognia, an eagle, which sat upon his tent, 
and was attacked by two crows, beat them both, and 
struck them to the ground, in the view of the whole army ; 
who thence inferred that discord would arise between the 
three colleagues, which would be attended with the like 
event : and it accordingly happened. At Philippi, he was 
assured of success by a Thessalian, upon the authority, as 



y- 




ARC X T S AGRIFPA 



C^KSAR AUGUSTUS. 161 

he pretended, of the Divine Caesar himself, who had ap- 
peared to him while he was travelling in a bye-road. At 
Perugia, the sacrifice not presenting any favourable inti- 
mations, but the contrary, he ordered fresh victims ; the 
enemy, however, carrying off the sacred things in a sud- 
den sally, it was agreed amongst the augurs, that all the 
dangers and misfortunes which had threatened the sacri- 
fice^ would fall upon the heads of those who had got pos- 
session of the entrails. And, accordingly, so it happened. 
The day before the sea-fight near Sicily, as he was walk- 
ing upon the shore, a fish leaped out of the sea, and laid 
itself at his feet. At Actium, while he was going down 
to his fleet to engage the enemy, he was met by an ass 
with a fellow driving it. The name of the man was Euty- 
chus, and that of the animal, Nichon. 1 After the victory, 
he erected a brazen statue to each, in a temple built upon 
the spot where he had encamped. 

XCV. His death, of which I shall now speak, and his 
subsequent deification, were intimated by divers manifest 
prodigies. As he was finishing the census amidst a great 
crowd of people in the Campus Martius, an eagle hovered 
round him several times, and then directed its course to a 
neighbouring temple, where it settled upon the name of 
Agrippa, and at the first letter. Upon observing this, he 
ordered his colleague Tiberius to put up the vows, which 
it is usual to make on such occasions, for the succeeding 
Lustrum. For he declared he would not meddle with 
what it was probable he should never accomplish, though 
the tables were ready drawn for it. About the same time, 
the first letter of his name, in an inscription upon one of 
his statues, was struck out by lightning ; which was inter- 

1 The good omen, in this instance, was founded upon the etymology 
of the names of the ass and its driver ; the former of which, in Greek, 
signifies fortunate, and the latter, victorious. 
ii 



i6 2 SUETONIUS. 

preted as a presage that he would live only a hundred 
days longer, the letter C denoting that number ; and that 
he would be placed amongst the Gods, as ^Esar, which is 
the remaining part of the word Caesar, signifies, in the 
Tuscan language, a God. 1 Being, therefore, about dis- 
patching Tiberius to Illyricum, and designing to go with 
him as far as Beneventum, but being detained by several 
persons who applied to him respecting causes they had 
depending, he cried out, (and it was afterwards regarded 
as an omen of his death), " Not all the business in the 
world, shall detain me at Rome one moment longer ;" and 
setting out upon his journey, he went as far as Astura; 2 
whence, contrary to his custom, he put to sea in the night- 
time, as there was a favourable wind. 

XCVI. His malady proceeded from diarrhoea ; not- 
withstanding which, he went round the coast of Campa- 
nia, and the adjacent islands, and spent four days in that 
of Capri ; where he gave himself up entirely to repose 
and relaxation. Happening to sail by the bay of Puteoli, 
the passengers and mariners aboard a ship of Alexan- 
dria, 3 just then arrived, clad all in white, with chaplets 
upon their heads, and offering incense, loaded him with 
praises and joyful acclamations, crying out, "By you we 
live, by you we sail securely, by you enjoy our liberty and 
our fortunes." At which being greatly pleased, he dis- 

1 ^Esar is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination ; ataa signify- 
ing fate. 

2 Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples. Au- 
gustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast. 

3 "Puteoli" — "a ship of Alexandria." Words which bring to our 
recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13. 
Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and 
not only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of 
corn and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other 
commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east. 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 163 

tributed to each of those who attended him, forty gold 
pieces, requiring from them an assurance on oath, not to 
employ the sum given them in any other way, than the 
purchase of Alexandrian merchandize. And during sev- 
eral days afterwards, he distributed Togse 1 and Pallia, 
among other gifts, on condition that the Romans should 
use the Greek, and the Greeks the Roman dress and 
language. He likewise constantly attended to see the 
boys perform their exercises, according to an ancient 
custom still continued at Capri. He gave them likewise 
an entertainment in his presence, and not only permitted, 
but required from them the utmost freedom in jesting, 
and scrambling for fruit, victuals, and other things which 
he threw amongst them. In a word, he indulged himself 
in all the ways of amusement he could contrive. 

He called an island near Capri, ' AnpaydTtoXis, "The City 
of the Do-littles" from the indolent life which several of 
his party led there. A favourite of his, one Masgabas, 2 
he used to call AWr^, as if he had been the planter of the 
island. And observing from his room a great company 
of people with torches, assembled at the tomb of this 
Masgabas, who died the year before, he uttered very dis- 
tinctly this verse, which he made extempore : 

Krtffroo di rufiftoi ecsopu) nup6u/j.evov. 
Blazing with lights I see the founder's tomb. 

Then turning to Thrasyllus, a companion of Tiberius, who 
reclined on the other side of the table, he asked him, who 
knew nothing about the matter, what poet he thought was 
the author of that verse ; and on his hesitating to reply, 
he added another : 

1 The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxL The 
Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and 
women, freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers. 

a Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin. 



i6 4 SUETONIUS. 

*0/>a> <pa.£<j(Tt WLa<rydfiav TtpL(6/i£vov. 
Honor' d with torches, Masgabas you see ; 

and put the same question to him concerning that like- 
wise. The latter replying, that, whoever might be the 
author, they were excellent verses, 1 he set up a great 
laugh, and fell into an extraordinary vein of jesting upon 
it. Soon afterwards, passing over to Naples, although 
at that time greatly disordered in his bowels by the fre- 
quent returns of his disease, he sat out the exhibition of 
the gymnastic games which were performed in his honour 
every five years, and proceeded with Tiberius to the place 
intended. But on his return, his disorder increasing, he 
stopped at Nola, sent for Tiberius back again, and ,had a 
long discourse with him in private ; after which, he gave 
no further attention to business of any importance. 

XCVII. Upon the day of his death, he now and then 
enquired, if there was any disturbance in the town on his 
account ; and calling for a mirror, he ordered his hair to 
be combed, and his shrunk cheeks to be adjusted. Then 
asking his friends who were admitted into the room, " Do 
you think that I have acted my part on the stage of life 
well?" he immediately subjoined, 

E« dk 7tav e%£i xaXwq, rw 7tau$vta), 

Aore xpoTOVj xai "Kavreq 6/j.slq jmerd. %apas XTU7Tyj<raT£. 

If all be right, with joy your voices raise, 

In loud applauses to the actor's praise. 

After which, having dismissed them all, whilst he was 
inquiring of some persons who were just arrived from 
Rome, concerning Drusus's daughter, who was in a bad 
state of health, he expired suddenly, amidst the kisses of 
Livia, and with these words : " Livia ! live mindful of our 

1 A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character 
he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that 
emperor. 



C^SAR AUGUSTUS. 165 

union ; and now, farewell I" dying a very easy death, and 
such as he himself had always wished for. For as often 
as he heard that any person had died quickly and with- 
out pain, he wished for himself and his friends the like 
luOavaaiav (an easy death), for that was the word he made 
use of. He betrayed but one symptom, before he breathed 
his last, of being delirious, which was this : he was all on 
a sudden much frightened, and complained that he was 
carried away by forty men. But this was rather a pre- 
sage, than any delirium : for precisely that number of 
soldiers belonging to the praetorian cohort, carried out his 
corpse. 

XCVIII. He expired in the same room in which his 
father Octavius had died, when the two Sextus's, Pompey 
and Apuleius, were consuls, upon the fourteenth of the 
calends of September [the 19th August], at the ninth 
hour of the day, being seventy-six years of age, wanting 
only thirty-five days. 1 His remains were carried by the 
magistrates of the municipal 2 towns and colonies, from 
Nola to Bovillae, 3 and in the night-time, because of the 
season of the year. During the intervals, the body lay in 
some basilica, or great temple, of each town. At Bovillae 
it was met by the Equestrian Order, who carried it to the 
city, and deposited it in the vestibule of his own house. 
The senate proceeded with so much zeal in the arrange- 
ment of his funeral, and paying honour to his memory, 

1 Augustus was born a. u. c. 691, and died a. u. c. 766. 

2 Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman cit- 
izens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing 
at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but 
not that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained 
their own laws and customs ; nor were they obliged to receive the Ro- 
man laws unless they chose it. 

3 Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles 
from Rome, now called Frattochio. 



1 66 SUETONIUS. 

that amongst several other proposals, some were for hav- 
ing the funeral procession made through the triumphal 
gate, preceded by the image of Victory which is in the 
senate-house, and the children of highest rank of both 
sexes singing the funeral dirge. Others proposed, that 
on the day of the funeral, they should lay aside their gold 
rings, and wear rings of iron ; and others, that his bones 
should be collected by the priests of the principal col- 
leges. One likewise proposed to transfer the name of 
August to September, because he was born in the latter, 
but died in the former. Another moved, that the whole 
period oF time, from his birth to his death, should be 
called the Augustan age, and be inserted in the calendar 
under that title. But at last it was judged proper to be 
moderate in the honours paid to his memory. Two fu- 
neral orations were pronounced in his praise, one before 
the temple of Julius, by Tiberius ; and the other before 
the rostra, under the old shops, by Drusus, Tiberius's son. 
The body was then carried upon the shoulders of sena- 
tors into the Campus Martius, and there burnt. A man 
of praetorian rank affirmed upon oath, that he saw his 
spirit ascend from the funeral pile to heaven. The most 
distinguished persons of the equestrian order, bare-footed, 
and with their tunics loose, gathered up his relics, 1 and 
deposited them in the mausoleum, which had been built 
in the sixth consulship between the Flaminian Way and 
the bank of the Tiber ; 2 at which time likewise he gave 

1 Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in this 
pious office, which occupied them during five days. 

2 For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 102, note. The superb mon- 
ument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family 
was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by 
a dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first 
who was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present 
Porta del Popolo ; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor 



CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 167 

the groves and walks about it for the use of the peo- 
ple. 

XCIX. He made a will a year and four months before 
his death, upon the third of the nones of April [the 1 1 th 
of April], in the consulship of Lucius Plancus, and Caius 
Silius. It consisted of two skins of parchment, written 
partly in his own hand, and partly by his freedmen Poly- 
bius and Hilarian ; and had been committed to the custody 
of the Vestal Virgins, by whom it was now produced, 
with three codicils under seal, as well as the will: all these 
were opened and read in the senate. He appointed as 
his direct heirs, Tiberius for two-thirds of his estate, and 
Livia for the other third, both of whom he desired to as- 
sume his name. The heirs in remainder were Drusus, 
Tiberius's son, for one third, and Germanicus with his 
three sons for the residue. In the third place, failing 
them, were his. relations, and several of his friends. He, 
left in legacies to the Roman people forty millions of ses- 
terces ; to the tribes 1 three millions five hundred thou- 
sand; to the praetorian troops a thousand each man; to 
the city cohorts five hundred ; and to the legions and sol- 
diers three hundred each ; which several sums he ordered 
to be paid immediately after his death, having taken due 
care that the money should be ready in his exchequer. 
For the rest he ordered different times of payment. In 
some of his bequests he went as far as twenty thousand 
sesterces, for the payment of which he allowed a twelve- 
month; alleging for this procrastination the scantiness of 
his estate; and declaring that not more than a hundred 

and his family were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the 
church of the Madonna of that name. 

1 The distinction between the Roman people and the tribes, is also 
observed by Tacitus, who substitutes the word plebs, meaning, the 
lowest class of the populace. 



1 68 SUETONIUS. 

and fifty millions of sesterces would come to his heirs: 
notwithstanding that during the twenty preceding years, 
he had received, in legacies from his friends, the sum of 
fourteen hundred millions; almost the whole of which, 
with his two paternal estates, 1 and others which had been 
left him, he had spent in the service of the state. He 
left orders that the two Julias, his daughter and grand- 
daughter, if any thing happened to them, should not be 
buried in his tomb. 2 With regard to the three codicils 
before mentioned, in one of them he gave orders about 
his funeral; another contained a summary of his acts, 
which he intended should be inscribed on brazen plates, 
and placed in front of his mausoleum ; in the third he had 
drawn up a concise account of the state of the empire ; 
the number of troops enrolled, what money there was in 
the treasury, the revenue, and arrears of taxes ; to which 
were added the names of the freedmen and slaves from 
whom the several accounts might be taken. 

1 Those of his father Octavius, and his father by adoption, Julius 
Caesar. 

2 See before c. lxiii. But he bequeathed a legacy to his daughter, 
Livia. 



REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF CAESAR AUGUSTUS. 169 



Octavius Caesar, afterwards Augustus, had now attained to the same 
position in the state which had formerly been occupied by Julius Caesar ; 
and though he entered upon it by violence, he continued to enjoy it 
through life with almost uninterrupted tranquillity. By the long dura- 
tion of the late civil war, with its concomitant train of public calami- 
ties, the minds of men were become less, averse to the prospect of an 
abso lute government; at the same time that the new emperor, naturally 
prudent and politic, had learned from the fate of Julius the art of pre- 
serving supreme power, without arrogating to himself any invidious 
mark of distinction. He affected to decline public honours, disclaimed 
every idea of personal superiority, and in all his behaviour displayed 
a degree of moderation which prognosticated the most happy effects, 
in restoring peace and prosperity to the harassed empire. The tenor 
of his future conduct was suitable to this auspicious commencement. 
While he endeavoured to conciliate the affections of the people by lend- 
ing money to those who stood in need of it, at low interest, or without 
any at all, and by the exhibition of public shows, of which the Romans 
were remarkably fond ; he was attentive to the preservation of a be- 
coming dignity in the government, and to the correction of morals. 
The senate, which, in the time of Sylla, had increased to upwards of 
four hundred, and, during the civil war, to a thousand, members, by 
the admission of improper persons, he reduced to six hundred ; and 
being invested with the ancient office of censor, which had for some 
time been disused, he exercised an arbitrary but legal authority over the 
conduct of every rank in the state ; by which he could degrade sena- 
tors and knights, and inflict upon all citizens an ignominious sentence 
for any immoral or indecent behaviour. But nothing contributed more 
to render the new form of government acceptable to the people, than 
the frequent distribution of corn, and sometimes largesses, amongst the 
commonalty: for an occasional scarcity of provisions had always been 
the chief cause of discontents and tumults in the capital. To the in- 
terests of the army he likewise paid particular attention. It was by the 
assistance of the legions that he had risen to power ; and they were the 
men who, in the last resort, if such an emergency should ever occur, 
could alone enable him to preserve it. 

History relates, that after the overthrow of Antony, Augustus held a 
consultation with Agrippa and Maecenas about restoring the republican 
form of government ; when Agrippa gave his opinion in favour of that 
measure, and Maecenas opposed it. The object of this consultation, in 



i 7 o REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

respect to its future consequences on society, is perhaps the most im- 
portant ever agitated in any cabinet, and required, for the- mature dis- 
cussion of it, the whole collective wisdom of the ablest men in the 
empire. But this was a resource which could scarcely be adopted, 
either with security to the public quiet, or with unbiassed judgment in 
the determination of the question. The bare agitation of such a point 
would have excited immediate and strong anxiety for its final result ; 
while the friends of a republican government, who were still far more 
numerous than those of the other party, would have strained every 
nerve to procure a determination in their own favour ; and the prae- 
torian guards, the surest protection of Augustus, finding their situation 
rendered precarious by such an unexpected occurrence, would have 
readily listened to the secret propositions and intrigues of the republi- 
cans for securing their acquiescence to the decision on the popular 
side. If, when the subject came into debate, Augustus should be sin- 
cere in the declaration to abide by the resolution of the council, it is 
beyond all doubt, that the restoration of a republican government 
would have been voted by a great majority of the assembly. If, on the 
contrary, he should not be sincere, which is the more probable suppo- 
sition, and should incur the suspicion of practising secretly with mem- 
bers for a decision according to his wish, he would have rendered him- 
self obnoxious to the public odium, and given rise to discontents which 
might have endangered his future security. 

But to submit this important question to the free and unbiassed de- 
cision of a numerous assembly, it is probable, neither suited the incli- 
nation of Augustus, nor perhaps, in his opinion, consisted with his 
personal safety. With a view to the attainment of unconstitutional 
power, he had formerly deserted the cause of the republic when its 
affairs were in a prosperous situation ; and now, when his end was ac- 
complished, there could be little ground to expect, that he should vol- 
untarily relinquish the prize for which he had spilt the best blood of 
Rome, and contended for so many years. Ever since the final defeat 
of Antony in the battle of Actium, he had governed the Roman state 
with uncontrolled authority ; and though there is in the nature of un- 
limited power an intoxicating quality, injurious both to public and 
private virtue, yet all -history contradicts the supposition of its being 
endued with any which is unpalatable to the general taste of mankind. 

There were two chief motives by which Augustus would naturally be 
influenced in a deliberation on this important subject ; namely, the love 
of power, and the personal danger which he might incur from relin- 
quishing it. Either of these motives might have been a sufficient in- 



THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS. 171 

ducement for retaining his authority; but when they both concurred, 
as they seem to have done upon this occasion, their united force was 
irresistible. The argument, so far as relates to the love of power, rests 
upon a ground, concerning the solidity of which, little doubt can be 
entertained : but it may be proper to inquire, in a few words, into the 
foundation of that personal danger which he dreaded to incur, on re- 
turning to the station of a private citizen. 

Augustus, as has been already observed, had formerly sided with the 
party which had attempted to restore public liberty after the death of 
Julius Caesar : but he afterwards abandoned the popular cause, and 
joined in the ambitious plans of Antony and Lepidus to usurp amongst 
themselves the entire dominion of the state. By this change of conduct, 
he turned his arms against the supporters of a form of government 
which he had virtually recognized as the legal constitution of Rome; and 
it involved a direct implication of treason against the sacred represen- 
tatives of that government, the consuls, formally and duly elected. 
Upon such a charge he might be amenable to the capital laws of his 
country. This, however, was a danger which might be fully obviated, 
by procuring from the senate and people an act of oblivion, previously 
to his abdication of the supreme power; and this was a preliminary 
which doubtless they would have admitted and ratified with unanimous 
approbation. It therefore appears that he could be exposed to no 
inevitable danger on this account : but there was another quarter where 
his person was vulnerable, and where even the laws might not be suffi- 
cient to protect him against the efforts of private resentment. The 
bloody proscription of the Triumvirate no act of amnesty could ever 
erase from the minds of those who had been deprived by it of their 
nearest and dearest relations ; and amidst the numerous connections 
of the illustrious men sacrificed on that horrible occasion, there might 
arise some desperate avenger, whose indelible resentment nothing less 
would satisfy than the blood of the surviving delinquent. Though 
Augustus, therefore, might not, like his great predecessor, be stabbed 
in the senate-house, he might perish by the sword or the poniard in a 
less conspicuous situation. After all, there seems to have been little 
danger from this quarter likewise ; for Sylla, who in the preceding age 
had been guilty of equal enormities, was permitted, on relinquishing 
the place of perpetual dictator, to end his days in quiet retirement; 
and the undisturbed security which Augustus ever afterwards enjoyed, 
affords sufficient proof, that all apprehension of danger to his person 
was merely chimerical. 

We have hitherto considered this grand consultation as it might be 



1 72 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

influenced by the passions or prejudices of the emperor : we shall now 
take a short view of the subject in the light in which it is connected 
with considerations of a political nature, and with public utility. The 
arguments handed down by history respecting this consultation are few, 
and imperfectly delivered ; but they may be extended upon the general 
principles maintained on each side of the question. 

For the restoration of the republican government, it might be con- 
tended, that from the expulsion of the kings to the dictatorship of 
Julius Caesar, through a period of upwards of four hundred and sixty 
years, the Roman state, with the exception only of a short interval, had 
flourished and increased with a degree of prosperity unexampled in the 
annals of human kind : that the republican form of government was not 
only best adapted to the improvement of national grandeur, but to the 
security of general freedom, the great object of all political association : 
that public virtue, by which alone nations could subsist in vigour, was 
cherished and protected by no mode of administration so much as by 
that which connected, in the strongest bonds of union, the private 
interest of individuals with those of the community: that the habits 
and prejudices of the Roman people were unalterably attached to the 
form of government established by so long a prescription, and they 
would never submit, for any length of time, to the rule of one person, 
without making every possible effort to recover their liberty: that 
though despotism, under a mild and wise prince, might in some re- 
spects be regarded as preferable to a constitution which was occasion- 
ally exposed to the inconvenience of faction and popular tumults, yet it 
was a dangerous experiment to abandon the government of the nation 
to the contingency of such a variety of characters as usually occurs in 
the succession of princes ; and, upon the whole, that the interests of 
the people were more safely entrusted in the hands of annual magis- 
trates elected by themselves, than in those of any individual whose 
power was permanent, and subject to no legal control. 

In favour of despotic government it might be urged, that though 
Rome had subsisted long and gloriously under a republican form of 
government, yet she had often experienced such violent shocks from 
popular tumults or the factions of the great, as had threatened her with 
imminent destruction : that a republican government was only accom- 
modated to a people amongst whom the division of property gave to 
no class of citizens such a degree of preeminence as might prove dan- 
gerous to public freedom : that there was required in that form of 
political constitution, a simplicity of life and strictness of manners 
which are never observed to accompany a high degree of public pros- 



THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS. t 73 

perity : that in respect of all these considerations, such a form of gov- 
ernment was utterly incompatible with the present circumstances of the 
Romans: that by the conquest of so many foreign nations, by the 
lucrative governments of provinces, the spoils of the enemy in war, 
and the rapine too often practised in time of peace, so great had been 
the aggrandizement of particular families in the preceding age, that 
though the form of the ancient constitution should still remain invio- 
late, the people would no longer live under a free republic, but an 
aristocratical usurpation, which was always productive of tyranny : that 
nothing could preserve the commonwealth from becoming a prey to 
some daring confederacy, but the firm and vigorous administration of 
one person, invested with the whole executive power of the state, un- 
limited and uncontrolled : in fine, that as Rome had been nursed to 
maturity by the government of six princes successively, so it was only 
by a similar form of political constitution that she could now be saved 
from aristocratical tyranny on one hand, or, on the other, from abso- 
lute anarchy. 

On whichever side of the question the force of argument may be 
thought to preponderate, there is reason to believe that Augustus was 
guided in his resolution more by inclination and prejudice than by 
reason. It is related, however, that hesitating between the opposite 
opinions of his two counsellors, he had recourse to that of Virgil, who 
joined with Maecenas in advising him lo retain the imperial power, as 
being the form of government most suitable to the circumstances of the 
times. 



TIBERIUS NERO CESAR. 

I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a 
plebeian family of the same name, no way inferior to the 
other either in power or dignity) came originally from 
Regilli, a town of the Sabines. They removed thence to 
Rome soon after the building of the city, with a great 
body of their dependants,, under Titus Tatius, who reigned 
jointly with Romulus in the kingdom ; or, perhaps, what 
is related upon better authority, under Atta Claudius, the 
head of the family, who was admitted by the senate into 
the patrician order six years after the expulsion of 
the Tarquins. They likewise received from the state, 
lands beyond the Anio for their followers, and a burying- 
place for themselves near the capitol. 1 After this period, 
in process of time, the family had the honour of twenty- 
eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, 
seven triumphs, and two ovations. Their descendants 
were distinguished by various prcznontina and cognomina? 

1 Intramural interments were prohibited at Rome by the laws of the 
Twelve Tables, notwithstanding the practice of reducing to ashes the 
bodies of the dead. It was only by special privilege that individuals 
who had deserved well of the state, and certain distinguished families 
were permitted to have tombs within the city. 

2 Among the Romans, all the descendants from one common stock 
were called Gentiles, being of the same race or kindred, however re- 
mote. The Gens, as they termed this general relation or clanship, was 
subdivided into families, in Familias vel Stirpes; and those of the same 
family were called Agnati. Relations by the father's side were also 

174 




p. DUJAB C 



THE EMPEROR TIBER: 



TIBERIUS. 175 

but rejected by common consent the praenomen of Lucius, 
when, of the two races who bore it, one individual had 
been convicted of robbery, and another of murder. 
Amongst other cognomina, they assumed that of Nero, 
which in the Sabine language signifies strong and valiant. 
II. It appears from record, that many of the Claudii 
have performed signal services to the state, as well as 
committed acts of delinquency. To mention the most 
remarkable only, Appius Caucus dissuaded the senate 
from agreeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial 
to the republic. 1 Claudius Candex first passed the straits 
of Sicily with a fleet, and drove the Carthaginians out of 

called Agnati, to distinguish them from Cognati, relations only on the 
mother's side. An Agnatus might also be called Cognatus, but not the 
contrary. 

To mark the different gentes and familice, and to distinguish the indi- 
viduals of the same family, the Romans had commonly three names, 
the Prozno?nen, Nomen, and Cognomen. The praenomen was put first, 
and marked the individual. It was usually written with one letter ; as 
A. for Aulus ; C. Caius ; D. Decimas ; sometimes with two letters; as 
Ap. for Appius; Cn. Cneius ; and sometimes with three; as Mam. for 
Mamercus. 

The Nomen was put after the Prcenomen, and marked the gens. It 
commonly ended in ius ; as Julius, Tullius, Cornelius. The Cogno- 
men was put last, and marked the familia; as Cicero, Cozsar, &c. 

Some gentes appear to have had no surname, as the Marian ; and 
gens and familia seem sometimes to be put one for the other ; as the 
Fabia gens, or Fabia familia. 

Sometimes there was a fourth name, properly called the Agnomen, 
but sometimes likewise Cognomen, which was added on account of some 
illustrious action or remarkable event. Thus Scipio was named Publius 
Cornelius Scipio Africanus, from the conquest of Carthage. In the 
same manner, his brother was called Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. 
Thus also Quintus Fabius Maximus received the Agno?nen of Cunctator, 
from his checking the victorious career of Hannibal by avoiding a 
battle. 

1 A.u.c.474. 



176 SUETONIUS. 

the island. 1 Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast 
army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain, before he could 
form a junction with his brother Annibal. 2 On the other 
hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs, 
made a violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom 
he was enamoured, adjudged a slave ; which caused the 
people to secede a second time from the senate. 3 Clau- 
dins Drusus erected a statue of himself wearing a crown 
at Appii Forum, 4 and endeavoured, by means of his de- 
pendants, to make himself master of Italy. Claudius 
Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily, 5 the pullets used 
for taking augury would not eat, in contempt of the 
omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at 
least, if they would not eat; and then engaging the 
enemy, was routed. After his defeat, when he was or- 
dered by the senate to name a dictator, making a sort 
of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, his ap- 
paritor. 

The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters 
equally opposite to each other. For both the Claudias 
belonged to it ; she, who, when the ship freighted with 
things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods, 6 stuck 
fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to 
the Goddess with a loud voice, "Follow me, if I am 
chaste ;" and she also, who, contrary to the usual prac- 
tice in the case of women, was brought to trial by the 

1 a.u.c. 490. 2 a.u.c. 547. 3 a.u.c. 304. 

4 An ancient Latin town on the Via Appia, the present road to 
Naples, mentioned by St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 15, and Horace, Sat. i. 5. 
3, in giving an account of their travels. 

5 a.u.c. 505. 

6 Cybele ; first worshipped in Phrygia, about Mount Ida, from whence 
a sacred stone, the symbol of her divinity, probably an aerolite, was 
transported to Rome, in consequence of the panic occasioned by Han- 
nibal's invasion, A.u.c. 508. 



TIBERIUS. 177 

people for treason ; because, when her litter was stopped 
by a great crowd in the streets, she openly exclaimed, 
" I wish my brother Pulcher was alive now, to lose an- 
other fleet, that Rome might be less thronged." Besides, 
it is well known, that all the Claudii, except Publius Clau- 
dius, who, to effect the banishment of Cicero, procured 
himself to be adopted by a plebeian, 1 and one younger 
than himself, were always of the patrician party, as well 
as great sticklers for the honour and power of that order ; 
and so violent and obstinate in their opposition to the 
plebeians, that not one of them, even in the case of a 
trial for life by the people, would ever condescend to put 
on mourning, according to custom, or make any supplica- 
tion to them for favour ; and some of them in their con- 
tests, have even proceeded to lay hands on the tribunes 
of the people. A Vestal Virgin likewise of the family, 
when her brother was resolved to have the honour of a 
triumph contrary to the will of the people, mounted the 
chariot with him, and attended him into the capitol, that 
it might not be lawful for any of the tribunes to inter- 
fere and forbid it. 2 

III. From this family Tiberius Caesar is descended ; 
indeed both by the father and mother's side ; by the 
former from Tiberius Nero, and by the latter from Ap- 
pius Pulcher, who were both sons of Appius Caecus. He 
likewise belonged to the family of the Livii, by the adop- 
tion of his mother's grandfather into it ; which family al- 
though plebeian, made a distinguished figure, having had 
the honour of eight consulships, two censorships, three 
triumphs, one dictatorship, and the office of master of the 
horse ; and was famous for eminent men, particularly, 
Salinator and the Drusi. Salinator, in his censorship, 3 

1 a.u.c. 695. 2 a.u.c. 611. 3 a. u. c. 550. 

12 



178 SUETONIUS. 

branded all the tribes, for their inconstancy in having 
made him consul a second time, as well as censor, al- 
though they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his 
first consulship. Drusus procured for himself and his 
posterity a new surname, by killing in single combat 
Drausus, the enemy's chief. He is likewise said to have 
recovered, when pro-praetor in the province of Gaul, the 
gold which was formerly given to the Senones, at the 
siege of the capitol, and had not, as is reported, been 
forced from them by Camillus. His great-great-grand- 
son, who, for his extraordinary services against the Grac- 
chi, was styled the " Patron of the Senate," left a son, 
who, while plotting in a sedition of the same description, 
was treacherously murdered by the opposite party. 1 

IV. But the father of Tiberius Caesar, being quaestor to 
Caius Caesar, and commander of his fleet in the war of 
Alexandria, contributed greatly to its success. He was 
therefore made one of the high-priests in the room of 
Publius Scipio ; 2 and was sent to settle some colonies in 
Gaul, and amongst the rest, those of Narbonne and 
Aries. 3 After the assassination of Caesar, however, when 
the rest of the senators, for fear of public disturbances, 
were for having the affair buried in oblivion, he proposed 
a resolution for rewarding those who had killed the ty- 
rant. Having filled the office of praetor, 4 and at the end 
of the year a disturbance breaking out amongst the tri- 
umviri, he kept the badges of his office beyond the legal 
time ; and following Lucius Antonius the consul, brother 
of the triumvir, to Perusia, 5 though the rest submitted, 

1 a. v. c. 663. 2 a. u. c. 707. 

3 These, and other towns in the south of France, became, and long 
continued, the chief seats of Roman civilization among the Gauls ; 
which is marked by the magnificent remains of ancient art still to be 
seen. Aries, in particular, is a place of great interest. 

* A. U. C. 710. 5 A. U. C. 713. 



TIBERIUS. 179 

yet he himself continued firm to the party, and escaped 
first to Praeneste, and then to Naples ; whence, having in 
vain invited the slaves to liberty, he fled over to Sicily. 
But resenting his not being immediately admitted into the 
presence of Sextus Pompey, and being also prohibited 
the use of the fasces, he went over into Achaia to Mark 
Antony ; with whom, upon a reconciliation soon after 
brought about amongst the several contending parties, 
he returned to Rome ; and, at the request of Augustus, 
gave up to him his wife Livia Drusilla, although she was 
then bie with child, and had before borne him a son. He 
died not long after ; leaving behind him two sons, Tibe- 
rius and Drusus Nero. 

V. Some have imagined that Tiberius was born at 
Fundi, but there is only this trifling foundation for the 
conjecture, that his mother's grandmother was of Fundi, 
and that the image of Good Fortune was, by a decree of 
the senate, erected in a public place in that town. But 
according to the greatest number of writers, and those 
too of the best authority, he was born at Rome, in the 
Palatine quarter, upon the sixteenth of the calends of 
December [16th Nov.], when Marcus ^Emilius Lepidus 
was second time consul, with Lucius Munatius Plancus, 1 
after the battle of Philippi ; for so it is registered in the 
calendar, and the public acts. According to some, how- 
ever, he was born in the preceding year, in the consul- 
ship of Hirtius and Pansa ; and others say, in the year 
following, during the consulship of Servilius Isauricus and 
Antony. 

VI. His infancy and childhood were spent in the midst 
of danger and trouble ; for he accompanied his parents 
everywhere in their flight, and twice at Naples nearly 

1 a.u.c. 712. Before Christ about 39. 



180 SUETONIUS. 

betrayed them by his crying, when they were privately 
hastening to a ship, as the enemy rushed into the town ; 
once, when be was snatched from his nurse's breast, and 
again, from his mothers bosom, by some of the company, 
who on the sudden emergency wished to relieve the 
women of their burden. Being carried through Sicily 
and Achaia, and entrusted for some time to the care of 
the Lacedaemonians, who were under the protection of 
the Claudian family, upon his departure thence when 
travelling by night, he ran the hazard of his life, by a fire 
which, suddenly bursting out of a wood on all sides, sur- 
rounded the whole party so closely, that part of Livia's 
dress and hair was burnt. The presents which were made 
him by Pompeia, sister to Sextus Pompey, in Sicily, namely, 
a cloak, with a clasp, and bullae of gold, are still in exist- 
ence, and shewn at Baiae to this day. After his return to 
the city, being adopted by Marcus Gallius, a senator, in 
his will, he took possession of the estate ; but soon after- 
wards declined the use of his name, because Gallius had 
been of the party opposed to Augustus. When only 
nine years of age, he pronounced a funeral oration in 
praise of his father upon the rostra; and afterwards, 
when he had nearly attained the age of manhood, he 
attended the chariot of Augustus, in his triumph for the 
victory at Actium, riding on the left-hand horse, wkilst 
Marcellus, Octavia's son, rode that on the right. He 
likewise presided at the games celebrated on account of 
that victory ; and in the Trojan games intermixed with 
the Circensian, he commanded a troop of the biggest 
boys. 

VII. After assuming the manly habit, he spent his youth, 
and the rest of his life until he succeeded to the govern- 
ment, in the following manner: he gave the people an en- 
tertainment of gladiators, in memory of his father, and 



TIBERIUS. - 181 

another for his grandfather Drusus, at different times and 
in different places: the first in the forum, the second in 
the amphitheatre ; some gladiators who had been honour- 
ably discharged, being induced to engage again, by a re- 
ward of a hundred thousand sesterces. He likewise ex- 
hibited public sports, at which he was not present himself. 
All these he performed with great magnificence, at the 
expense of his mother and father-in-law. He married 
Agrippina, the daughter of Marcus Agrippa, and grand- 
daughter of Caecilius Atticus, a Roman knight, the same 
person to whom Cicero has addressed so many epistles. 
After having by her his son Drusus, he was obliged to 
part with her, 1 though she retained his affection, and was 
again pregnant, to make way for marrying Augustus's 
daughter Julia. But this he did with extreme reluctance; 
for, besides having the warmest attachment to Agrippina, 
he was disgusted with the conduct of Julia, who had made 
indecent advances to him during the lifetime of her for- 
mer husband; and that she was a woman of loose char- 
acter, was the general opinion. At divorcing Agrippina 
he felt the deepest regret; and upon meeting her after- 
wards, he looked after her with eyes so passionately ex- 
pressive of affection, that care was taken she should 
never again come in his sight. At first, however, he lived 
quietly and happily with Julia; but a rupture soon ensued, 
which became so violent, that after the loss of their son, 
the pledge of their union, who was born at Aquileia and 
died in infancy, 2 he never would sleep with her more. He 
lost his brother Drusus in Germany, and brought his 
body to Rome, travelling all the way on foot before it. 

VIII. When he first applied himself to civil affairs, he 
defended the several causes of king Archelaus, the Tral- 

1 a. u. c. 744. 2 a. u. c. 735. 



182 SUETONIUS. 

Hans, and the Thessalians, before Augustus, who sat as 
judge at the trials. He addressed the senate on behalf 
of the Laodiceans, the Thyatireans, and Chians, who had 
suffered greatly by an earthquake, and implored relief 
from Rome. He prosecuted Fannius Caepio, who had 
been engaged in a conspiracy with Varro Mursena against 
Augustus, and procured sentence of condemnation against 
him. Amidst all this, he" had besides to superintend two 
departments of the administration, that of supplying the 
city with corn, which was then very scarce, and that of 
clearing the houses of correction 1 throughout Italy, the 
masters of which had fallen under the odious suspicion of 
seizing and keeping confined, not only travellers, but 
those whom the fear of being obliged to serve in the army 
had driven to seek refuge in such places. 

IX. He made his first campaign, as a military tribune, 
in the Cantabrian war. 2 Afterwards he led an army into 
the East, 3 where he restored the kingdom of Armenia to 
Tigranes ; and seated on a tribunal, put a crown upon 
his head. He likewise recovered from the Parthians the 
standards which they had taken from Crassus. He next 
governed, for nearly a year, the province of Gallia Co- 
mata, which was then in great disorder, on account of the 
incursions of the barbarians, and the feuds of the chiefs. 
He afterwards commanded in the several wars against 
the Rhaetians, Vindelicians, Pannonians, and Germans. 
In the Rhsetian and Vindelician wars, he subdued the 
nations in the Alps ; and in the Pannonian wars the Bruci, 
and the Dalmatians. In the German war, he transplanted 
into Gaul forty thousand of the enemy who had submit- 
ted, and assigned them lands near the banks of the Rhine. 
For these actions, he entered the city with an ovation, but 

1 See before, in the reign of Augustus, c. xxxii. 
2 a. u. c. 728. 3 a. u. c. 734. 



TIBERIUS. 183 

riding in a chariot, and is said by some to have been the 
first that ever was honoured with this distinction. He 
filled early the principal offices of state ; and passed 
through the quaestorship, 1 praetorship, 2 and consulate 3 al- 
most successively. After some interval, he was chosen 
consul a second time, and held the tribunitian authority 
during five years. 

X. Surrounded by all this prosperity, in the prime of 
life and in excellent health, he suddenly formed the reso- 
lution of withdrawing to a greater distance from Rome. 4 
It is uncertain whether this was the result of disgust for 
his wife, whom he neither durst accuse nor divorce, and 
the connection with whom became every day more in- 
tolerable ; or to prevent that indifference towards him, 
which his constant residence in the city might produce ; 
or in the hope of supporting and improving by absence 
his authority in the state, if the public should have occa- 
sion for his service. Some are of opinion, that as Augus- 
tus's sons were now grown up to years of maturity, he 
voluntarily relinquished the possession he had long en- 
joyed of the second place in the government, as Agrippa 
had done before him ; who, when M. Marcellus was ad- 
vanced to public offices, retired to Mitylene, that he might 
not seem to stand in the way of his promotion, or in any 
respect lessen him by his presence. The same reason 
likewise Tiberius gave afterwards for his retirement ; but 
his pretext at this time was, that he was satiated with 
honours, and desirous of being relieved from the fatigue of 
business ; requesting therefore that he might have leave 
to withdraw. And neither the earnest entreaties of his 
mother, nor the complaint of his father-in-law made even 
in the senate, that he was deserted by him, could prevail 

1 a. u. c. 737. 2 a. u. c. 741. 3 a. u. c. 747. 4 a. u. c. 748. 



1 84 SUETONIUS. 

upon him to alter his resolution. Upon their persisting 
in the design of detaining him, he refused to take any 
sustenance for four days together. At last, having ob- 
tained permission, leaving his wife and son at Rome, he 
proceeded to Ostia, 1 without exchanging a word with those 
who attended him, and having embraced but very few 
persons at parting. 

XL From Ostia, journeying along the coast of Campa- 
nia, he halted awhile on receiving intelligence of August- 
us's being taken ill, but this giving rise to a rumour that 
he stayed with a view to something extraordinary, he sailed 
with the wind almost full against him, and arrived at 
Rhodes, having been struck with the pleasantness and 
healthiness of the island at the time of his landing there 
in his return from Armenia. Here contenting himself 
with a small house, and a villa not much larger, near the 
town, he led entirely a private life, taking his walks some- 
times about the Gymnasia, 2 without any lictor or other 
attendant, and returning the civilities of the Greeks with 
almost as much complaisance as if he had been upon a 
level with them. One morning, in settling the course of 
his daily excursion, he happened to say, that he should 
visit all the sick people in the town. This being not 

1 Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, about thirteen miles from the city, 
was founded by Ancus Martius. Being the' port of a city like Rome, it 
could not fail to become opulent ; and it was a place of much resort, 
ornamented with fine edifices, and the environs " never failing of pas- 
ture in the summer time, and in the winter covered with roses and other 
flowers." The port having been filled up with the depositions of the 
Tiber, it became deserted, and is now abandoned to misery and mala- 
ria. The bishopric of Ostia being the oldest in the Roman church, its 
bishop has always retained some peculiar privileges. 

2 The Gymnasia were places of exercise, and received their name 
from the Greek word signifying naked, because the contending parties 
wore nothing but drawers. 



TIBERIUS. 185 

rightly understood by those about him, the sick were 
brought into a public portico, and ranged in order, accord- 
ing to their several distempers. Being extremely embar- 
rassed by this unexpected occurrence, he was for some 
time irresolute how he should act ; but at last he deter- 
mined to go round them all, and make an apology for the 
mistake, even to the meanest amongst them, and such 
as were entirely unknown to him. One instance only is 
mentioned, in which he appeared to exercise his tribu- 
nitian authority. Being a constant attendant upon the 
schools and lecture-rooms of the professors of the liberal 
arts, on occasion of a quarrel amongst the wrangling 
sophists, in which he interposed to reconcile them, some 
person took the liberty to abuse him as an intruder, and 
partial in the affair. Upon this, withdrawing privately 
home, he suddenly returned attended by his officers, and 
summoning his accuser before his tribunal, by a public 
crier, ordered him to be taken to prison. Afterwards he 
received tidings that his wife Julia had been condemned 
for her lewdness and adultery, and that a bill of divorce 
had been sent to her in his name, by the authority of 
Augustus. Though he secretly rejoiced at this intelli- 
gence, he thought it incumbent upon him, in point of 
decency, to interpose in her behalf by frequent letters to 
Augustus, and to allow her to retain the presents which 
he had made her, notwithstanding the little regard she 
merited from him. When the period of his tribunitian 
authority expired, 1 declaring at last that he had no other 
object in his retirement than to avoid all suspicion of 
rivalship with Caius and Lucius, he petitioned that, since 
he was now secure in that respect, as they were come to 
the age of manhood, and would easily maintain them- 
selves in possession of the second place in the state, he 

1 A. U. C. 752. 



1 86 SUETONIUS. 

might be permitted to visit his friends, whom he was very 
desirous of seeing. But his request was denied ; and he 
was advised to lay aside all concern for his friends, whom 
he had been so eager to quit. 

XII. He therefore continued at Rhodes much against 
his will, obtaining, with difficulty, through his mother, the 
title of Augustus's lieutenant, to cover his disgrace. He 
thenceforth lived, however, not only as a private person, 
but as one suspected and under apprehension, retiring 
into the interior of the country, and avoiding the visits of 
those who sailed that way, which were very frequent ; for 
no one passed to take command of an army, or the gov- 
ernment of a province, without touching at Rhodes. But 
there were fresh reasons for increased anxiety. For cross- 
ing over to Samos, on a visit to his step-son Caius, who 
had been appointed governor of the East, he found him 
prepossessed against him, by the insinuations of Marcus 
Lollius, his companion and director. He likewise fell 
under suspicion of sending by some centurions who had 
been promoted by himself, upon their return to the camp 
after a furlough, mysterious messages to several persons 
there, intended, apparently, to tamper with them for a 
revolt. This jealousy respecting his designs being inti- 
mated to him by Augustus, he begged repeatedly that 
some person of any of the three Orders might be placed 
as a spy upon him in every thing he either said or did. 

XIII. He laid aside likewise his usual exercises of 
riding and arms ; and quitting the Roman habit, made 
use of the Pallium and Crepida. 1 In this condition he 
continued almost two years, becoming daily an object of 
increasing contempt and odium ; insomuch that the people 
of Nismes pulled down all the images and statues of him 

1 The cloak and slippers, as distinguished from the Roman toga and 
shoes. 



TIBERIUS. 187 

in their town ; and upon mention being made of him at 
table, one of the company said to Caius, " I will sail over 
to Rhodes immediately, if you desire me, and bring you 
the head of the exile ;" for that was the appellation now 
given him. Thus alarmed not only by apprehensions, 
but real danger, he renewed his solicitations for leave to 
return; and, seconded by the most urgent supplications 
of his mother, he at last obtained his request ; to which 
an accident somewhat contributed. Augustus had re- 
solved to determine nothing in the affair, but with the 
consent of his eldest son. The latter was at that time 
out of humour with Marcus Lollius, and therefore easily 
disposed to be favourable to his father-in-law. Caius thus 
acquiescing, he was recalled, but upon condition that he 
should take no concern whatever in the administration of 
affairs. 

XIV. He returned to Rome after an absence of nearly 
eight years, 1 with great and confident hopes of his future 
elevation, which he had entertained from his youth, in 
consequence of various prodigies and predictions. For 
Livia, when pregnant with him, being anxious to discover, 
by different modes of divination, whether her offspring 
would be a son, amongst others, took an egg from a hen 
that was sitting, and kept it warm with her own hands, 
and those of her maids, by turns, until a fine cock-chicken, 
with a large comb, was hatched. Scribonius, the astrolo- 
ger, predicted great things of him when he was a mere 
child. "He will come in time," said the prophet, "to be 
even a king, but without the usual badge of royal dig- 
nity ;" the rule of the Caesars being as yet unknown. 
When he was making his first expedition, and leading his 
army through Macedonia into Syria, the altars which had 
been formerly consecrated at Philippi by the victorious 

1 a. u. c. 755. 



1 88 SUETONIUS. 

legions, blazed suddenly with spontaneous fires. Soon 
after, as he was marching to Illyricum, he stopped to con- 
sult the oracle of Geryon, near Padua ; and having drawn 
a lot by which he was desired to throw golden tali into 
the fountain of Aponus, 1 for an answer to his inquiries, 
he did so, and the highest numbers came up. And those 
very tali are still to be seen at the bottom of the fountain. 
A few days before his leaving Rhodes, an eagle, a bird 
never before seen in that island, perched on the top of 
his house. And the day before he received the intelli- 
gence of the permission granted him to return, as he was 
changing his dress, his tunic appeared to be all on fire. 
He then likewise had a remarkable proof of the skill of 
Thrasyllus, the astrologer, whom, for his proficiency in 
philosophical researches, he had taken into his family. 
For, upon sight of the ship which brought the intelli- 
gence, he said good news was coming: whereas every 
thing going wrong before, and quite contrary to his pre- 
dictions, Tiberius had intended that very moment, when 
they were walking together, to throw him into the sea, as 
an impostor, and one to whom he had too hastily entrusted 
his secrets. 

XV. Upon his return to Rome, having introduced his 
son Drusus into the forum, he immediately removed from 
Pompey's house, in the Carinae, to the gardens of Maece- 
nas, on the Esquiline, 2 and resigned himself entirely to 

1 This fountain, in the Euganian hills, near Padua, famous for its 
mineral waters, is celebrated by Claudian in one of his elegies. 

2 The street called Carinae, at Rome, has been mentioned before ; 
Augustus, c. v. ; and also Maecenas's house on the Esquiline, ib. c. 
lxx. The gardens were formed on ground without the walls, and 
before used as a cemetery for malefactors, and the lower classes. Horace 
says — 

Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque 
Aggere in aprico spatiari. — Sat. i. i. viii. 13. 



TIBERIUS. 189 

his ease, performing only the common offices of civility 
in private life, without any preferment in the government. 
But Caius and Lucius being both carried off in the space 
of three years, he was adopted by Augustus, along with 
their brother Agrippa ; being obliged in the first place to 
adopt Germanicus, his brother's son. After his adoption, 
he never more acted as master of a family, nor exercised, 
in the smallest degree, the rights which he had lost by it. 
For he neither disposed of anything in the way of gift, 
nor manumitted a slave ; nor so much as received any 
estate left him by will, nor any legacy, without reckoning 
it as a part of his peculium or property held under his 
father. From that day forward, nothing was omitted that 
might contribute to the advancement of his grandeur, and 
much more, when, upon Agrippa being discarded and 
banished, it was evident that the hope of succession 
rested upon him alone. 

. XVI. The tribunitian authority was again conferred 
upon hkn for five years, 1 and a commission given him to 
settle the affairs of Germany. The ambassadors of the 
Parthians, after having had an audience of Augustus, 
were ordered to apply to him likewise in his province. 
But on receiving intelligence of an insurrection in Illyri- 
cum, 2 he went over to superintend the management of that 
new war, which proved the most serious of all the foreign 
wars since the Carthaginian. This he conducted during 
three years, with fifteen legions and an equal number of 
auxiliary forces, under great difficulties, and an extreme 
scarcity of corn. And though he was several times re- 
called, he nevertheless persisted ; fearing lest an enemy 
so powerful, and so near, should fall upon the army in 
their retreat. This resolution was attended with good 

1 a. u. c. 757. 2 a. u. c. 760. 



190 SUETONIUS. 

success ; for he at last reduced to complete subjection all 
lllyricum, lying between Italy and the kingdom of Nori- 
cum, Thrace, Macedonia, the river Danube, and the Adri- 
atic gulf. 

XVII. The glory he acquired by these successes re- 
ceived an increase from the conjuncture in which they 
happened. For almost about that very time 1 Quintilius 
Varus was cut off with three legions in Germany ; and it 
was generally believed that the victorious Germans would 
have joined the Pannonians. had not the war of lllyricum 
been previously concluded. A triumph, therefore, besides 
many other great honours, was decreed him. Some pro- 
posed that the surname of " Pannonicus," others that of 
" Invincible," and others, of " Pius," should be conferred 
on him ; but Augustus interposed, engaging for him that 
he would be satisfied with that to which he would succeed 
at his death. He postponed his triumph, because the 
state was at that time under great affliction for the dis- 
aster of Varus and his army. Nevertheless, he entered 
the city in a triumphal robe, crowned with laurel, and 
mounting a tribunal in the Septa, sat with Augustus be- 
tween the two consuls, whilst the senate gave their 
attendance standing ; whence, after he had saluted the 
people, he was attended by them in procession to the 
several temples. 

XVIII. Next year he went again to Germany, where 
finding that the defeat of Varus was occasioned by the 
rashness and negligence of the commander, he thought 
proper to be guided in everything by the advice of a 
council of war ; whereas, at other times, he used to follow 
the dictates of his own judgment, and considered himself 
alone as sufficiently qualified for the direction of affairs. 

1 a. u. c. 762. 




GERMANIC1 






TIBERIUS. 



191 



He likewise used more cautions than usual. Having to 
pass the Rhine, he restricted the whole convoy within 
certain limits, and stationing himself on the baak of the 
river, would not suffer the waggons to cross the river, 
until he had searched them at the water-side, to see that 
they carried nothing but what was allowed or necessary. 
Beyond the Rhine, such was his way of living, that he 
took his meals sitting on the bare ground, 1 and often 
passed the night without a tent ; and his regular orders 
for the day, as well as those upon sudden emergencies, 
he gave in writing, with this injunction, that in case of 
any doubt as to the meaning of them, they should apply 
to him for satisfaction, even at any hour of the night. 

XIX. He maintained the strictest discipline amongst 
the troops ; reviving many old customs relative to pun- 
ishing and degrading offenders; setting a mark of dis- 
grace even upon the commander of a legion, for sending 
a few soldiers with one of his freedmen across the river 
for the purpose of hunting. Though it was his desire to 
leave as little as possible in the power of fortune or acci- 
dent, yet he always engaged the enemy with more confi- 
dence when, in his night-watches, the lamp failed and 
went out of itself ; trusting, as he said, in an omen which 
had never failed him and his ancestors in all their com- 
mands. But, in the midst of victory, he was very near 
being assassinated by some Bructerian, who mixing with 
those about him, and being discovered by his trepidation, 
was put to the torture, and confessed his intended crime. 

XX. After two years he returned from Germany to 
the city, and celebrated the triumph which he had de- 
ferred, attended by his lieutenants, for whom he had 

1 Reviving the simple habits ot the times of the republic; "nee for- 
tuitum cernere cespitem," as Horace describes it. — Ode 15. 



ip2 SUETONIUS. 

procured the honour of triumphal ornaments. 1 Before 
he turned to ascend the capitol, he alighted from his 
chariot, and knelt before his father, who sat by, to super- 
intend the solemnity. Bato, the Pannonian chief, he sent 
to Ravenna, loaded with rich presents, in gratitude for 
his having suffered him and his army to retire from a 
position in which he had so enclosed them, that they were 
entirely at his mercy. He afterwards gave the people a 
dinner at a thousand tables, besides thirty sesterces to 
each man. He likewise dedicated the temple of Con- 
cord, 2 and that of Castor and Pollux, which had been 
erected out of the spoils of the war, in his own and his 
brother's name. 

XXI. A law having been not long after carried by the 
consuls 3 for his being appointed a colleague with Augus- 
tus in the administration of the provinces, and in taking 
the census, when that was finished he went into Illyri- 
cum. 4 But being hastily recalled during his journey* he 
found Augustus alive indeed, but past all hopes of reco- 
very, and was with him in private a whole day. I know, 
it is generally believed, that upon Tiberius's quitting the 
room, after their private conference, those who were in 
waiting overheard Augustus say, " Ah ! unhappy Roman 
people, to be ground by the jaws of such a slow de- 
vourer!" Nor am I ignorant of its being reported by 
some, that Augustus so openly and undisguisedly con- 
demned the sourness of his temper, that sometimes, upon 
his coming in, he would break off any jocular conversa- 

1 a. u. c. 765. 

2 The portico of the temple of Concord is still standing on the side 
of the forum nearest the capitol. It consists of six Ionic columns, each 
of one piece, and of a light-coloured granite, with bases and capitals 
of white marble, and two columns at the angles. The temple of Castor 
and Pollux has been mentioned b.efore : Jul. c. x. 

3 A. U. C 766. * A. U. C 767. 



TIBERIUS. 193 

tion in which he was engaged ; and that he was only pre- 
vailed upon by the importunity of his wife to adopt him ; 
or actuated by the ambitious view of recommending his 
own memory from a comparison with such a successor. 
Yet I must hold to this opinion, that a prince so extremely 
circumspect and prudent as he was, did nothing rashly, 
especially in an affair of so great importance ; but that, 
upon weighing the vices and virtues of Tiberius with 
each other, he judged the latter to preponderate ; and 
this the rather since he swore publicly, in an assembly of 
the people, that " he adopted him for the public good." 
Besides, in several of his letters, he extols him as a con- 
summate general, and the only security of the Roman 
people. Of such declarations I subjoin the following in- 
stances : "Farewell, my dear Tiberius, and may success 
attend you, whilst you are warring for me and the 
Muses. 1 Farewell, my most dear, and (as I hope to 
prosper) most gallant man, and accomplished general." 
Again. " The disposition of your summer quarters ? In 
truth, my dear Tiberius, I do not think, that amidst so 
many difficulties, and with an army so little disposed for 
action, any one could have behaved more prudently than 
you have done. All those likewise who were with you, 
acknowledge that this verse is applicable to you :" 

Unus homo nobis vigilando restituit rem. 2 
One man by vigilance restored the state. 

" Whenever," he says, " any thing happens that requires 
more than ordinary consideration, or I am out of humour 

1 Augustus interlards this epistle, and that subsequently quoted, with 
Greek sentences and phrases, of which this is one. It is so obscure, 
that commentators suppose that it is a mis-reading, but are not agreed 
on its drift. 

3 A verse in which the word in italics is substituted for cunctando, 
quoted from Ennius, who applied it to Fabius Maximus. 
*3 



i 9 4 SUETONIUS. 

upon any occasion, I still, by Hercules ! long for my dear 
Tiberius ; and those lines of Homer frequently occur to 
my thoughts :" 

Toorno d' iffxo/iivoto xau ix ry/>oc aido/xiyoto 
v A;i(pu) vo<TTTJ<Tdi/i£v, iftsi rtipi olSs voijffac. 1 
Bold from his prudence, I could ev'n aspire 
To dare with him the burning rage of fire. 

"When I hear and read that you are much impaired 
by the continued fatigues you undergo, may the gods 
confound me if my whole frame does not tremble ! So 
I beg you to spare yourself, lest, if we should hear of 
your being ill, the news prove fatal both to me and your 
mother, and the Roman people should be in peril for the 
safety of the empire. It matters nothing whether I be 
well or no, if you be not well. I pray heaven preserve 
you for us, and bless you with health both now and ever, 
if the gods have any regard for the Roman people." 

XXII. He did not make the death of Augustus public, 
until he had taken off young Agrippa. He was slain 
by a tribune who commanded his guard, upon reading a 
written order for that purpose : respecting which order, 
it was then a doubt, whether Augustus left it in his last 
moments, to prevent any occasion of public disturbance 
after his decease, or Livia issued it, in the name of Au- 
gustus ; and whether with the knowledge of Tiberius or 
not. When the tribune came to inform him that he had 
executed his command, he replied, " I commanded you no 
such thing, and you must answer for it to the senate ;" 
avoiding, as it seems, the odium of the act for that time. 
And the affair was soon buried in silence. 

XXIII. Having summoned the senate to meet by virtue 
of his tribunitian authority, and begun a mournful speech, 

1 Iliad, B. x. Diomede is speaking of Ulysses, where he asks that 
he may accompany him as a spy into the Trojan camp. 



TIBERIUS. 195 

he drew a deep sigh, as if unable to support himself un- 
der his affliction ; and wishing that not his voice only, but 
his very breath of life, might fail him, gave his speech to 
his son Drusus to read. Augustus's will was then brought 
in, and read by a freedman ; none of the witnesses to it 
being admitted, but such as were of the senatorian order, 
the rest owning their hand-writing without doors. The 
will began thus : " Since my ill-fortune has deprived me 
of my two sons, Caius and Lucius, let Tiberius Caesar be 
heir to two-thirds of my estate." These words counte- 
nanced the suspicion of those who were of opinion, that 
Tiberius was appointed successor more out of necessity 
than choice, since Augustus could not refrain from pre- 
facing his will in that manner. 

XXIV. Though he made no scruple to assume and 
exercise immediately the imperial authority, by giving or- 
ders that he should be attended by the guards, who were 
the security and badge of the supreme power; yet he 
affected, by a most impudent piece of acting, to refuse it 
for a long time ; one while sharply reprehending his 
friends who entreated him to accept it, as little knowing 
what a monster the government was; another while keep- 
ing in suspense the senate, when they implored him and 
threw themselves at his feet, by ambiguous answers, and 
a crafty kind of dissimulation ; insomuch that some were 
out of patience, and one cried out, during the confusion, 
" Either let him accept it, or decline it at once ;" and a 
second told him to his face, " Others are slow to perform 
what they promise, but you are slow to promise what you 
actually perform." At last, as if forced to it, and com- 
plaining of the miserable and burdensome service im- 
posed upon him, he accepted the government ; not, how- 
ever, without giving hopes of his resigning it some time 
or other. The exact words he used were these : " Until 



196 SUETONIUS. 

the time shall come, when ye may think it reasonable to 
give some rest to my old age." 

XXV. The cause of his long demur was fear of the 
dangers which threatened him on all hands ; insomuch 
that he said, " I have got a wolf by the ears." For a 
slave of Agrippa's, Clemens by name, had drawn together 
a considerable force to revenge his master's death ; Lu- 
cius Scribonius Libo, a senator of the first distinction, was 
secretly fomenting a rebellion ; and the troops both in 
Illyricum and Germany were mutinous. Both armies 
insisted upon high demands, particularly that their pay 
should be made equal to that of the pretorian guards. 
The army in Germany absolutely refused to acknowledge 
a prince who was not their own choice ; and urged, with 
all possible importunity, Germanicus, 1 who commanded 
them, to take the government on himself, though he ob- 
stinately refused it. It was Tiberius's apprehension from 
this quarter, which made him request the senate to assign 
him some part only in the administration, such as they 
should judge proper, since no man could be sufficient for 
the whole, without one or more to assist him. He pre- 
tended likewise to be in a bad state of health, that Ger- 
manicus might the more patiently wait in hopes of speed- 
ily succeeding him, or at least of being admitted to be a 
colleague of the government. When the mutinies in 
the armies were suppressed, he got Clemens into his 
hands by stratagem. That he might not begin his 
reign by an act of severity, he did not call Libo to an 
account before the senate until his second year, being 
content, in the mean time, with taking proper precau- 
tions for his own security. For upon Libo's attending a 
sacrifice amongst the high-priests, instead of the usual 

1 Tiberius had adopted Germanicus. See before, c. xv. See also 
Caligula, c. i. 



TIBERIUS. 197 

knife, he ordered one of lead to be given him ; and when 
he desired a private conference with him, he would not 
grant his request, but on condition that his son Drusus 
should be present ; and as they walked together, he held 
him fast by the right hand, under the pretence of leaning 
upon him, until the conversation was over. 

XXVI. When he was delivered from his apprehen- 
sions, his behaviour at first was unassuming, and he did 
not carry himself much above the level of a private per- 
son ; and of the many and great honours offered him, he 
accepted but few, and such as were very moderate. His 
birth-day, which happened to fall at the time of the Ple- 
beian Circensian games, he with difficulty suffered to be 
honoured with the addition of only a single chariot, drawn 
by two horses. He forbad temples, flamens, or priests 
to be appointed for him, as likewise the erection of any 
statues or effigies for him, without his permission ; and 
this he granted only on condition that they should not be 
placed amongst the images of the gods, but only amongst 
the ornaments of houses. He also interposed to prevent 
the senate from swearing to maintain his acts ; and the 
month of September from being called Tiberius, and Oc- 
tober being named after Livia. The praenomen likewise 
of Emperor, with the cognomen of Father of his coun- 
try, and a civic crown in the vestibule of his house, he 
would not accept. He never used the name of Augustus, 
although he inherited it, in any of his letters, excepting 
those addressed to kings and princes. Nor had he more 
than three consulships ; one for a few days, another for 
three months, and the third, during his absence from the 
city, until the ides [fifteenth] of May. 

XXVII. He had such an aversion to flattery, that he 
would never suffer any senator to approach his litter, as 
he passed the streets in it, either to pay him a civility, or 



198 SUETONIUS. 

upon business. And when a man of consular rank, in 
begging his pardon for some offence he had given him, 
attempted to fall at his feet, he started from him in such 
haste, that he stumbled and fell. If any compliment was 
paid him, either in conversation or a set speech, he would 
not scruple to interrupt and reprimand the party, and 
alter what he had said. Being once called "lord," 1 by 
some person, he desired that he might no more be af- 
fronted in that manner. When another, to excite vene- 
ration, called his occupations " sacred,'' and a third had 
expressed himself thus : " By your authority I have waited 
upon the senate," he obliged them to change their phrases; 
in one of them adopting persuasion, instead of "authority," 
and in the other, laborious, instead of "sacred." 

XXVIII. He remained unmoved at all the aspersions, 
scandalous reports, and lampoons, which were spread 
against him or his relations ; declaring, " In a free state, 
both the tongue and the mind ought to be free." Upon 
the senate's desiring that some notice might be taken of 
those offences, and the persons charged with them, he re- 
plied, "We have not so much time upon our hands, that 
we ought to involve ourselves in more business. If you 
once make an opening 2 for such proceedings, you will 
soon have nothing else to do. All private quarrels will 
be brought before you under that pretence." There is also 
on record another sentence used by him in the senate, 
which is far from assuming: "If he speaks otherwise of 
me, I shall take care to behave in such a manner, as to be 
able to give a good account both of my words and actions ; 
and if he persists, I shall hate him in my turn." 

XXIX. These things were so much the more remark- 

1 In this he imitated Augustus. See c. liii. of his life. 

2 Si hanc fe?iestram aperueritis ; if you open that window, equivalent 
to our phrase " if you open the door." 



TIBERIUS. 199 

able in him, because, in the respect he paid to individuals, 
or the whole body of the senate, he went beyond all 
bounds. Upon his differing with Ouintus Haterius in the 
senate-house, " Pardon me, sir," he said, " I beseech you, 
if I shall, as a senator, speak my mind very freely in op- 
position to you." Afterwards, addressing the senate in 
general, he said: " Conscript Fathers, I have often said it 
both now and at other times, that a good and useful 
prince, whom you have invested with so great and abso- 
lute power, ought to be a slave to the senate, to the whole 
body of the people, and often to individuals likewise: nor 
am I sorry that I have said it. I have always found you 
good, kind, and indulgent masters, and still find you so." 

XXX. He likewise introduced a certain show of liberty, 
by preserving to the senate and magistrates their former 
majesty and power. All affairs, whether of great or 
small importance, public or private, were laid before the 
senate. Taxes and monopolies, the erecting or repairing 
edifices, levying and disbanding soldiers, the disposal of 
the legions and auxiliary forces in the provinces, the ap- 
pointment of generals for the management of extraordi- 
nary wars, and the answers to letters from foreign princes, 
were all submitted to the senate. He compelled the com- 
mander of a troop of horse, who was accused of robbery 
attended with violence, to plead his cause before the sen- 
ate. He never entered the senate-house but unattended; 
and being once brought thither in a litter, because he was 
indisposed, he dismissed his attendants at the door. 

XXXI. When some decrees were made contrary to his 
opinion, he did not even make any complaint. And 
though he thought that no magistrates after their nomi- 
nation should be allowed to absent themselves from the 
city, but reside in it constantly, to receive their honours 
in person, a praetor-elect obtained liberty to depart under 



200 SUETONIUS. 

the honorary title of a legate at large. Again, when he 
proposed to the senate, that the Trebians might have 
leave granted them to divert some money which had been 
left them by will for the purpose of building a new thea- 
tre, to that of making a road, he could not prevail to have 
the will of the testator set aside. And when, upon a di- 
vision of the house, he went over to the minority, nobody 
followed him. All other things of a public nature were 
likewise transacted by the magistrates, and in the usual 
forms; the authority of the consuls remaining so great, 
that some ambassadors from Africa applied to them, and 
complained, that they could not have their business dis- 
patched by Caesar, to whom they had been sent. And 
no wonder; since it was observed that he used to rise up 
as the consuls approached, and give them the way. 

XXXII. He reprimanded some persons of consular 
rank in command of armies, for not writing to the senate 
an account of their proceedings, and for consulting him 
about the distribution of military rewards; as if they them- 
selves had not a right to bestow them as they judged 
proper. He commended a praetor, who, on entering office, 
revived an old custom of celebrating the memory of his 
ancestors, in a speech to the people. He attended the 
corpses of some persons of distinction to the funeral pile. 
He displayed the same moderation with regard to per- 
sons and things of inferior consideration. The magis- 
trates of Rhodes, having dispatched to him a letter on 
public business, which was not subscribed, he sent for 
them, and without giving them so much as one harsh 
word, desired them to subscribe it, and so dismissed 
them. Diogenes, the grammarian, who used to hold 
public disquisitions at Rhodes every sabbath-day, once 
refused him admittance upon his coming to hear him out 
of course, and sent him a message by a servant, postpon- 



TIBERIUS. 201 

ing his admission to the nexth seventh-day. Diogenes 
afterwards coming to Rome, and waiting at his door to 
be allowed to pay his respects to him, he sent him word 
to come again at the end of seven years. To some gov- 
ernors, who advised him to load the provinces with taxes, 
he answered, " It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, 
not flay, his sheep." 

XXXIII. He assumed the sovereignty 1 by slow de- 
grees, and exercised it for a long time with great variety 
of conduct, though generally with a due regard to the 
public good. At first he only interposed to prevent ill 
management. Accordingly, he rescinded some decrees 
of the senate ; and when the magistrates sat for the ad- 
ministration of justice, he frequently offered his service as 
assessor, either taking his place promiscuously amongst 
them, or seating himself in a corner of the tribunal. If 
a rumour prevailed, that any person under prosecution 
was likely to be acquitted by his interest, he would sud- 
denly make his appearance, and from the floor of the 
court, or the praetor's bench, remind the judges of the 
laws, and of their oaths, and the nature of the charge 
brought before them. He likewise took upon himself 
the correction of public morals, where they tended to 
decay, either through neglect, or evil custom. 

XXXIV. He reduced the expense of the plays and 
public spectacles, by diminishing the allowances to actors, 
and curtailing the number of gladiators. He made griev- 
ous complaints to the senate, that the price of Corinthian 
vessels was become enormous, and that three mullets 

1 Princeps y principatus, are the terms generally used by Suetonius to 
describe the supreme authority vested in , the Caesars, as before at the 
beginning of chapter xxiv., distinguished from any terms which con- 
veyed an idea of kingly power, the forms of the republic, as we have 
lately seen, still subsisting. 



202 SUETONIUS. 

had been sold for thirty thousand sesterces : upon which 
he proposed that a new sumptuary law should be en- 
acted ; that the butchers and other dealers in viands 
should be subject to an assize, fixed by the senate yearly ; 
and the aediles commissioned to restrain eating-houses 
and taverns, so far as not even to permit the sale of any 
kind of pastry. And to encourage frugality in the public 
by his own example, he would often, at his solemn feasts, 
have at his tables victuals which had been served up the 
day before, and were partly eaten, and half a boar, affirm- 
ing, " It has all the same good bits that the whole had." 
He published an edict against the practice of people's 
kissing each other when they met ; and would not allow 
new year's gifts 1 to be presented after the calends [the 
first] of January was passed. He had been in the habit 
of returning these offerings four-fold, and making them 
with his own hand ; but being annoyed by the continual 
interruption to which he was exposed during the whole 
month, by those who had not the opportunity of attend- 
ing him on the festival, he returned none after that day. 

XXXV. Married women guilty of adultery, though 
not prosecuted publicly, he authorised the nearest rela- 
tions to punish by agreement among themselves, accord- 
ing to ancient custom. He discharged a Roman knight 
from the obligation of an oath he had taken, never to 
turn away his wife ; and allowed him to divorce her, upon 
her being caught in criminal intercourse with her son-in- 
law. Women of ill-fame, divesting themselves of the 
rights and dignity of matrons, had now begun a practice 
of professing themselves prostitutes, to avoid the punish- 
ment of the laws ; and the most profligate young men of 
the senatorian and equestrian orders, to secure themselves 
against a decree of the senate, which prohibited their 

1 Strenas ; the French etrennes. 



TIBERIUS. 203 

performing on the stage, or in the amphitheatre, volun- 
tarily subjected themselves to an infamous sentence, by 
which they were degraded. All those he banished, that 
none for the future might evade by such artifices the in- 
tention and efficacy of the law. He stripped a senator 
of the broad stripes on his robe, upon information of his 
having removed to his gardens before the calends [the 
first] of July, in order that he might afterwards hire a 
house cheaper in the city. He likewise dismissed another 
from the office of quaestor, for repudiating, the day after 
he had been lucky in drawing his lot, a wife whom he had 
married only the day before. 

XXXVI. He suppressed all foreign religions, and the 
Egyptian 1 and Jewish rites, obliging those who practised 
that kind of superstition, to burn their vestments, and all 
their sacred utensils. He distributed the Jewish youths, 
under the pretence of military service, among the pro- 
vinces noted for an unhealthy climate ; and dismissed 
from the city all the rest of that nation as well as those 
who were proselytes to that religion, 2 under pain of slav- 
ery for life, unless they complied. He also expelled the 

1 "Tiberius pulled down the temple of Isis, caused her image to be 
thrown into the Tiber, and crucified her priests." — Joseph. Ant. Jud. 
xviii. 4. 

2 Similia sectantes. We are strongly inclined to think that the words 
might be rendered "similar sects," conveying an allusion to the small 
and obscure body of Christians, who were at this period generally con- 
founded with the Jews, and supposed only to differ from them in some 
peculiarities of their institutions, which Roman historians and magis- 
trates did not trouble themselves to distinguish. How little even the 
well-informed Suetonius knew of the real facts, we shall find in the 
only direct notice of the Christians contained in his works (Claudius, 
c. xxv, Nero, c. xvi.); but that little confirms our conjecture. All 
the commentators, however, give the passage the turn retained in the 
text. Josephus informs us of the particular occurrence which led to the 
expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Tiberius. — Ant. xviii. 5. 



204 SUETONIUS. 

astrologers ; but upon their suing for pardon, and promis- 
ing to renounce their profession, he revoked his decree. 

XXXVII. But, above all things, he was careful to keep 
the public peace against robbers, burglars, and those who 
were disaffected to the government. He therefore in- 
creased the number of military stations throughout Italy ; 
and formed a camp at Rome for the praetorian cohorts, 
which, till then, had been quartered in the city. He sup- 
pressed with great severity all tumults of the people on 
their first breaking out ; and took every precaution to 
prevent them. Some persons having been killed in a 
quarrel which happened in the theatre, he banished the 
leaders of the parties, and the players about whom the 
disturbance had arisen ; nor could all the entreaties of 
the people afterwards prevail upon him to recall them. 1 
The people of Pollentia having refused to permit the 
removal of the corpse of a centurion of the first rank 
from the forum, until they had extorted from his heirs a 
sum of money for a public exhibition of gladiators, he 
detached a cohort from the city, and another from the 
kingdom of Cottius ; 2 who concealing the cause of their 
march, entered the town by -different gates, with their 
arms suddenly displayed, and trumpets sounding ; and 
having seized the greatest part of the people, and the 
magistrates, they were imprisoned for life. He abolished 

1 Varro tells us that the Roman people "were more actively em- 
ployed {pianus mover e) in the theatre and cirrus, than in the corn-fields 
and vineyards." — De Re Rustic, ii. And Juvenal, in his satires, fre- 
quently alludes to their passion for public spectacles, particularly in the 
well-known lines — 

Atque duas tantum res serfius optat, 

Panem et Circenses. Sat. x. 80. 

2 The Cottian Alps derived their name from this king. They include 
that part of the chain which divides Dauphiny from Piedmont, and are 
crossed by the pass of the Mont Cenis. 



TIBERIUS. 205 

every where the privileges of all places of refuge. The 
Cyzicenians having committed an outrage upon some 
Romans, he deprived them of the liberty they had ob- 
tained from their good services in the Mithridatic war. 
Disturbances from foreign enemies he quelled by his lieu- 
tenants, without ever going against them in person ; nor 
would he even employ his lieutenants, but with much re- 
luctance, and when it was absolutely necessary. Princes 
who were ill-affected towards him, he kept in subjection, 
more by menaces and remonstrances, than by force of 
arms. Some whom he induced to come to him by fair 
words and promises, he never would permit to return 
home ; as Maraboduus the German, Thrascypolis the 
Thracian, and Archelaus the Cappadocian, whose king- 
dom he even reduced into the form of a province. 

XXXVIII. He never set foot outside the gates of 
Rome, for two years together, from the time he assumed 
the supreme power ; and after that period, went no far- 
ther from the city than to some of the neighbouring 
towns ; his farthest excursion being to Antium, 1 and that 
but very seldom, and for a few days; though he often 
gave out that he would visit the provinces and armies, 
and made preparations for it almost every year, by tak- 
ing up carriages, and ordering provisions for his retinue 
in the municipia and colonies. At last he suffered vows to 
be put up for his good journey and safe return, insomuch 
that he was called jocosely by the name of Callipides, 
who is famous in a Greek proverb, for being in a great 
hurry to go forward, but without ever advancing a cubit. 

1 Antium, mentioned before (Aug. c. lviii.), once a flourishing city 
of the Volscians, standing on the sea-coast, about thirty-eight miles 
from Rome, was a favourite resort of the emperors and persons of 
wealth. The Apollo Belvidere was found among the ruins of its tem- 
ples and other edifices. 



2o6 SUETONIUS. 

XXXIX. But after the loss of his two sons, of whom 
Germanicus died in Syria, and Drusus at Rome, he with- 
drew into Campania j 1 at which time opinion and conver- 
sation were almost general, that he never would return, 
and would die soon. And both nearly turned out to be 
true. For indeed he never more came to Rome ; and a 
few days after leaving it, when he was at a villa of his 
called the Cave, near Terracina, 2 during supper a great 
many huge stones fell from above, which killed several of 
the guests and attendants ; but he almost hopelessly es- 
caped. 

XL. After he had gone round Campania, and dedicated 
the capitol at Capua, and a temple to Augustus at Nola, 3 
which he made the pretext of his journey, he retired to 
Capri ; being greatly delighted with the island, because it 
was accessible only by a narrow beach, being on all sides 
surrounded with rugged cliffs, of a stupendous height, 
and by a deep sea. But immediately, the people of Rome 
being extremely clamorous for his return, on account of 
a disaster at Fidenae, 4 where upwards of twenty thousand 
persons had been killed by the fall of the amphitheatre, 
during a public spectacle of gladiators, he crossed over 
again to the continent, and gave all people free access to 
him ; so much the more, because, at his departure from 
the city, he had caused it to be proclaimed that no one 
should address him, and had declined admitting any per- 
sons to his presence, on the journey. 

1 a. u. c. 779. 

2 Terracina, standing at the southern extremity of the Pontine 
Marshes, on the shore of the Mediterranean. It is surrounded by- 
high calcareous cliffs, in which there are caverns, affording, as Strabo 
informs us, cool retreats, attached to the Roman villas built round. 

3 Augustus died at Nola, a city in Campania. See c. lviii. of his life. 

4 Fidenge stood in a bend of the Tiber, near its junction with the 
Anio. There are few traces of it remaining. 



o 




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1 




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TIBERIUS. 







n TIBERIUS. 207 

1 S 

XLI. Returning to the island, he so far abandoned 
all care of the government, that he never filled up the 
decurise of the knights, never changed any military tri- 
bunes or prefects, or governors of provinces, and kept 
Spain and Syria for several years without any consular 
lieutenants. He likewise suffered Armenia to be seized 
by the Parthians, Mcesia by the Dacians and Sarmatians, 
and Gaul to be ravaged by the Germans ; to the great 
disgrace, and no less danger, of the empire. 

XLII. But having now the advantage of privacy, and 
being remote from the observation of the people of 
Rome, he abandoned himself to all the vicious propensi- 
ties which he had long but imperfectly concealed, and of 
which I shall here give a particular account from the 
beginning. While a young soldier in the camp, he was 
so remarkable for his excessive inclination to wine, that, 
for Tiberius, they called him Biberius ; for Claudius, Cal-, 
dues ; and for Nero, Mero. And after he succeeded to 
the empire, and was invested with the office of reforming 
the morality of the people, he spent a whole night and 
two days together in feasting and drinking with Pompo- 
nius Flaccus and Lucius Piso ; to one of whom he imme- 
diately gave the province of Syria, and to the other the 
prefecture of the city ; declaring them, in his letters- 
patent, to be " very pleasant companions, and friends fit 
for all occasions." He made an appointment to sup with 
Sestius Gallus, a lewd and prodigal old fellow, who had 
been disgraced by Augustus, and reprimanded by him- 
self but a few days before in the senate-house ; upon 
condition that he should not recede in the least from his 
usual method of entertainment, and that they should be 
attended at table by naked girls. He preferred a very 
obscure candidate for the quaestorship, before the most 
noble competitors, only for taking off, in pledging him at 



208 SUETONIUS. 

table, an amphora of wine at a draught. 1 He presented 
Asellius Sabinus with two hundred thousand sesterces, 
for writing a dialogue, in the way of dispute, betwixt the 
truffle and the fig-pecker, the oyster and the thrush. He 
likewise instituted a new office to administer to his volup- 
tuousness, to which he appointed Titus Caesonius Priscus, 
a Roman knight. 

XLIII. In his retreat at Capri, 2 he also contrived an 
apartment containing couches, and adapted to the secret 
practice of lewdness, where he entertained companies of 
disreputable girls. *_**•** 

******** 

He had several chambers set round with pictures and 
statues in the most suggestive attitudes, and furnished 
with the books of Elephantis, that none might want a 
pattern for the execution of any project that was pre- 
scribed him. He likewise contrived recesses in woods 
and groves for the gratification of young persons of both 
sexes, in caves and hollow rocks. So that he was pub- 
licly and commonly called, by an abuse of the name of 
the island, Caprineus? 

XLIV. But he was still more infamous, if possible, for 
an abomination not fit to be mentioned or heard, much 
less credited. 4 ***** 

1 That any man could drink an amphora of wine at a draught, is be- 
yond all credibility ; for the amphora was nearly equal to nine gallons, 
English measure. The probability is, that the man had emptied a large 
vessel, which was shaped like an amphora. 

2 Capri, the luxurious retreat and scene of the debaucheries of the 
Roman emperors, is an island off the southern point of the bay of 
Naples, about twelve miles in circumference. 

3 The name of the island having a double meaning, and signifying 
also a goat. 

* " Quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos ' pisciculos' vocabat, insti- 
tueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina versarentur, ac luderent : lingua 



TIBERIUS. 209 

When a picture, painted by Parrhasius, in which the artist 
had represented Atalanta in the act of submitting to 
Meleager's lust in the most unnatural way, was be- 
queathed to him, with this proviso, that if the subject 
was offensive to him, he might receive in lieu of it a mil- 
lion sesterces, he not only chose the picture, but hung it 
up in his bed-chamber. * * * * 

XLV. How much he was guilty of a most foul inter- 
course with women even of the first quality, 1 appeared 
very plainly by the death of one Mallonia, who, being 
brought to his bed, but resolutely refusing to comply 
with his lust, he gave her up to the common informers. 
Even when she was upon her trial, he frequently called 
out to her, and asked her, " Do you repent?" until she, 
quitting the court, went home, and stabbed herself; 
openly upbraiding the vile old lecher for his gross ob- 
scenity ; 2 hence there was an allusion to him in a farce, 
which was acted at the next public sports, and was re- 
ceived with great applause, and became a common topic 
of ridicule: 3 that the old g-oat ft * * * 

o 

XLVI. He was so niggardly and covetous, that he 
never allowed to his attendants, in his travels and expe- 
ditions, any salary, but their diet only. Once, indeed, he 
treated them liberally, at the instigation of his step-father, 
when, dividing them into three classes, according to their 
rank, he gave the first six, the second four, and the third 
two, hundred thousand sesterces, which last class he called 
not friends, but Greeks. 

morsuque sensim appetentes; atque etiam quasi infantes firmiores, 
necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini ceu papillae admoveret : pronior 
sane ad id genus libidinis, et natura et setate." 

1 "Foeminarum capitibus solitus illudere." 

2 " Obscoenitate oris hirsuto atque olido." 

3 " Hircum vetulum capreis naturam ligurire." 

14 



2io SUETONIUS. 

XLVII. During the whole time of his government, he 
never erected any noble edifice ; for the only things he 
did undertake, namely, building the temple of Augustus, 
and restoring Pompey's Theatre, he left at last, after 
many years, unfinished. Nor did he ever entertain the 
people with public spectacles ; and he was seldom pre- 
sent at those which were given by others, lest any thing 
of that kind should be requested of him ; especially after 
he was obliged to give freedom to the comedian Actius. 
Having relieved the poverty of a few senators, to avoid 
further demands, he declared that he should for the future 
assist none, but those who gave the senate full satisfac- 
tion as to the cause of their necessity. Upon this, most of 
the needy senators, from modesty and shame, declined 
troubling him. Amongst these was Hortalus, grandson 
to the celebrated orator Quintus Hortensius, who [mar- 
rying], by the persuasion of Augustus, had brought up 
four children upon a very small estate. 

XLVIII. He displayed only two instances of public 
munificence. One was an offer to lend gratis, for three 
years, a hundred millions of sesterces to those who 
wanted to borrow ; and the other, when, some large 
houses being burnt down upon Mount Ccelius, he indem- 
nified the owners. To the former of these he was com- 
pelled by the clamours of the people, in a great scarcity 
of money, when he had ratified a decree of the senate 
obliging all money-lenders to advance two-thirds of their 
capital on land, and the debtors to pay off at once the 
same proportion of their debts, and it was found insuf- 
ficient to remedy the grievance. The other he did to 
alleviate in some degree the pressure of the times. But 
his benefaction to the sufferers by fire, he estimated at so 
high a rate, that he ordered the Ccelian Hill to be called, 
in future, the Augustan. To the soldiery, after doubling 




DRUSU.S. 

[ BROTHER OF THE EMPEROR TIBERIUS 



GEBBIE & CO 



TIBERIUS. 211 

the legacy left them by Augustus, he never gave any 
thing, except a thousand denarii a man to the pretorian 
guards, for not joining the party of Sejanus ; and some 
presents to the legions in Syria, because they alone had 
not paid reverence to the effigies of Sejanus among 
their standards. He seldom gave discharges to the vet- 
eran soldiers, calculating on their deaths from advanced 
age, and on what would be saved by thus getting rid of 
them, in the way of rewards or pensions. Nor did he 
ever relieve the provinces by any act of generosity, ex- 
cepting Asia, where some cities had been destroyed by 
an earthquake. 

XLIX. In the course of a very short time, he turned 
his mind to sheer robbery. It is certain that Cneius Len- 
tulus, the augur, a man of vast estate, was so terrified 
and worried by his threats and importunities, that he was 
obliged to make him his heir ; and that Lepida, a lady of 
a very noble family, was condemned by him, in order to 
gratify Quirinus, a man of consular rank, extremely rich, 
and childless, who had divorced her twenty years before, 
and now charged her with an old design to poison him. 
Several persons, likewise, of the first distinction in Gaul, 
Spain, Syria, and Greece, had their estates confiscated 
upon such despicably trifling and shameless pretences, 
that against some of them no other charge was preferred, 
than that they held large sums of ready money as part of 
their property. Old immunities, the rights of mining, and 
of levying tolls, were taken from several cities and private 
persons. And Vonones, king of the Parthians, who had 
been driven out of his dominions by his own subjects, 
and fled to Antioch with a vast treasure, claiming the 
protection of the Roman people, his allies, was treacher- 
ously robbed of all his money, and afterwards murdered. 

L. He first manifested hatred towards his own rela- 



212 SUETONIUS. 

tions in the case of his brother Drusus, betraying him 
by the production of a letter to himself, in which Drusus 
proposed that Augustus should be forced to restore the 
public liberty. In course of time, he shewed the same 
disposition with regard to the rest of his family. So far 
was he from performing any office of kindness or huma- 
nity to his wife, when she was banished, and, by her 
father's order, confined to one town, that he forbad her 
to stir out of the house, or converse with any men. He 
even wronged her of the dowry given her by her father, 
and her yearly allowance, by a quibble of law, because 
Augustus had made no provision for them on her behalf 
in his will. Being harassed by his mother, Livia, who 
claimed an equal share in the government with him, he 
frequently avoided seeing her, and all long and private 
conferences with her, lest it should be thought that he 
was governed by her counsels, which, notwithstanding, he 
sometimes sought, and was in the habit of adopting. He 
was much offended at the senate, when they proposed to 
add to his other titles that of the Son of Livia, as well as 
Augustus. He, therefore, would not suffer her to be called 
" the Mother of her country," nor to receive any extra- 
ordinary public distinction. Nay, he frequently admo- 
nished her " not to meddle with weighty affairs, and such 
as did not suit her sex ;" especially when he found her 
present at a fire which broke out near the Temple of 
Vesta, 1 and encouraging the people and soldiers to use 

1 The Temple of Vesta, like that dedicated to the same goddess at 
Tivoli, is round. There was probably one on the same site, and in the 
same circular form, erected by Numa Pompilius ; the present edifice is 
far too elegant for that age, but there is no record of its erection, but 
it is known to have been repaired by Vespasian or Domitian after being 
injured by Nero's fire. Its situation, near the Tiber, exposed it to floods, 
from which we find it suffered, from Horace's lines — 



TIBERIUS. 213 

their utmost exertions, as she had been used to do in the 
time of her husband. 

LI. He afterwards proceeded to an open rupture with 
her, and, as is said, upon this occasion. She having fre- 
quently urged him to place among the judges a person 
who had been made free of the city, he refused her re- 
quest, unless she would allow it to be inscribed on the 
roll, " That the appointment had been extorted from him 
by his mother." Enraged at this, Livia brought forth 
from her chapel some letters from Augustus to her, com- 
plaining of the sourness and insolence of Tiberius's tern- 1 
per, and these she read. So much was he offended at 
these letters having been kept so long, and now produced 
with so much bitterness against him, that some considered 
this incident as one of the causes of his going into seclu- 
sion, if not the principal reason for so doing. In the 
whole years he lived during his retirement, he saw her 
but once, and that for a few hours only. When she fell 
sick shortly afterwards, he was quite unconcerned about 
visiting her in her illness ; and when she died, after pro- 
mising to attend her funeral, he deferred his coming for 
several days, so that the corpse was in a state of decay 
and putrefaction before the interment; and he then for- 
bad divine honours being paid to her, pretending that he 
acted according to her own directions. He likewise an- 

" Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis 
Littore Etrusco violenter undis, 
Ire dejectum monurnenta Regis, 

Templaque Vestse." — Ode, lib. i. 2. 15. 

This beautiful temple is still in good preservation. It is surrounded by 
twenty columns of white marble, and the wall of the cell, or interior 
(which is very small, its diameter being only the length of one of the 
columns), is also built of blocks of the same material, so nicely joined, 
that it seems to be formed of one solid mass. 



214 SUETONIUS. 

nulled her will, and in a short time ruined all her friends 
and acquaintance; not even sparing those to whom, on 
her death-bed, she had recommended the care of her fu- 
neral, but condemning one of them, a man of equestrian 
rank, to the tread-mill. 1 

LII. He entertained no paternal affection either for his 
own son Drusus, or his adopted son Germanicus. Of- 
fended at the vices of the former, who was of a loose 
disposition and led a dissolute life, he was not much af- 
fected at his death; but, almost immediately after the 
funeral, resumed his attention to business, and prevented 
the courts from being longer closed. The ambassadors 
from the people of Ilium coming rather late to offer their 
condolence, he said to them by way of banter, as if the 
affair had already faded from his memory, " And I heartily 
condole with you on the loss of your renowned country- 
man Hector." He so much affected to depreciate Ger- 
manicus, that he spoke of his achievements as utterly 
insignificant, and railed at his most glorious victories as 
ruinous to the state ; complaining of him also to the sen- 
ate for going to Alexandria without his knowledge, upon 
occasion of a great and sudden famine at Rome. It was 
believed that he took care to have him dispatched by 
Cneius Piso, his lieutenant in Syria. This person was 
afterwards tried for the murder, and would, as was sup- 
posed, have produced his orders, had they not been con- 
tained in a private and confidential dispatch. The follow- 
ing words therefore were posted up in many places, and 
frequently shouted in the night : " Give us back our Ger- 
manicus." This suspicion was afterwards confirmed by 
the barbarous treatment of his wife and children. 

LIII. His daughter-in-law Agrippina, after the death of 

1 Antlia ; a machine for drawing up water in a series of connected 
buckets, which was worked by the feet, nisu pedum. 



TIBERIUS. 215 

her husband, complaining upon some occasion with more 
than ordinary freedom, he took her by the hand, and ad- 
dressed her in a Greek verse to this effect : " My dear 
child, do you think yourself injured, because you are not 
empress ?" Nor did he ever vouchsafe to speak to her 
again. Upon her refusing once at supper to taste some 
fruit which he presented to her, he declined inviting her 
to his table, pretending that she in effect charged him 
with a design to poison her; whereas the whole was a 
contrivance of his own. He was to offer the fruit, and 
she to be privately cautioned against eating what would 
infallibly cause her death. At last, having her accused of 
intending to flee for refuge to the statue of Augustus, or 
to the army, he banished her to the island of Pandataria. 1 
Upon her reviling him for it, he caused a centurion to 
beat out one of her eyes ; and when she resolved to 
starve herself to death, he ordered her mouth to be^ 
forced open, and meat to be crammed down her throat. 
But she persisting in her resolution, and dying soon after- 
wards, he persecuted her memory with the basest asper- 
sions, and persuaded the senate to put her birth-day 
amongst the number of unlucky days in the calendar. 
He likewise took credit for not having caused her to be 
strangled and her body cast upon the Gemonian Steps, 
and suffered a decree of the senate to pass, thanking him 
for his clemency, and an offering of gold to be made to 
Jupiter Capitolinus on the occasion. 

LIV. He had by Germanicus three grandsons, Nero, 
Drusus, and Caius ; and by his son Drusus one, named 
Tiberius. Of these, after the loss of his sons, he com- 
mended Nero and Drusus, the two eldest sons of Ger- 
manicus, to the senate ; and at their being solemnly in- 

1 The elder Agrippina was banished to this island by Augustus. See 
c. lxiii. of his life. 



216 SUETONIUS. 

troduced into the forum, distributed money among the 
people. But when he found that on entering upon the 
new year they were included in the public vows for his 
own welfare, he told the senate, " that such honours ought 
not to be conferred but upon those who had been proved, 
and were of more advanced years." By thus betraying 
his private feelings towards them, he exposed them to 
all sorts of accusations ; and after practising many arti- 
fices to provoke them to rail at and abuse him, that he 
might be furnished with a pretence to destroy them, he 
charged them with it in a letter to the senate ; and at the 
same time accusing them, in the bitterest terms, of the 
most scandalous vices. Upon their being declared ene- 
mies by the senate, he starved them to death ; Nero in 
the island of Ponza, and Drusus in the vaults of the Pala- 
tium. It is thought by some that Nero was driven to a 
voluntary death by the executioner's shewing him some 
halters and hooks, as if he had been sent to him by order 
of the senate. Drusus, it is said, was so rabid with 
hunger, that he attempted to eat the chaff with which 
his mattress was stuffed. The relics of both were so 
scattered, that it was with difficulty they were col- 
lected. 

LV. Besides his old friends and intimate acquaintance, 
he required the assistance of twenty of the most eminent 
persons in the city, as counsellors in the administration of 
public affairs. Out of all this number, scarcely two or 
three escaped the fury of his savage disposition. All the 
rest he destroyed upon one pretence or another; and 
among them ^Elius Sejanus, whose fall was attended 
with the ruin of many others. He had advanced this 
minister to the highest pitch of grandeur, not so much 
from any real regard for him, as that by his base and sin- 
ister contrivances he might ruin the children of Germani- 



TIBERIUS. 



217 



cus, and thereby secure the succession to his own grand- 
son by Drusus. 

LVI. He treated with no greater leniency the Greeks 
in his family, even those with whom he was most pleased. 
Having asked one Zeno, upon his using some far-fetched 
phrases, " What uncouth dialect is that?" he replied, " The 
Doric." For this answer he banished him to Cinara, 1 sus- 
pecting that he taunted him with his former residence at 
Rhodes, where the Doric dialect is spoken. It being his 
custom to start questions at supper, arising out of what 
he had been reading in the day, and finding that Seleucus, 
the grammarian, used to inquire of his attendants what 
authors he was then studying, and so came prepared for 
his inquiries — he first turned him out of his family, and 
then drove him to the extremity of laying violent hands 
upon himself. 

LVII. His cruel and sullen temper appeared when he 
was still a boy ; which Theodorus of Gadara, 2 his master 
in rhetoric, first discovered, and expressed by a very op- 
posite simile, calling him sometimes, when he chid him, 
" Mud mixed with blood." But his disposition shewed 
itself still more clearly on his attaining the imperial 
power, and even in the beginning of his administration, 
when he was endeavouring to gain the popular favour, 
by affecting moderation. Upon a funeral passing by, a 
wag called out to the dead man, " Tell Augustus, that the 
legacies he bequeathed to the people are not yet paid." 
The man being brought before him, he ordered that he 
should receive what was due to him, and then be led to 
execution, that he might deliver the message to his father 
himself. Not long afterwards, when one Pompey, a Ro- 

1 An island in the Archipelago. 

1 This Theodore is noticed by Quintilian, Instit. iii. 1. Gadara was 
in Syria. 



2x8 SUETONIUS. 

man knight, persisted in his opposition to something he 
proposed in the senate, he threatened to put him in 
prison, and told him, "Of a Pompey I shall make a Pom- 
peian of you;" by a bitter kind of pun playing upon the 
man's name, and the ill-fortune of his party. 

LVIII. About the same time, when the praetor con- 
sulted him, whether it was his pleasure that the tribunals 
should take cognizance of accusations of treason, he re- 
plied, "The laws ought to be put in execution ;" and he 
did put them in execution most severely. Some person 
had taken off the head of Augustus from one of his 
statues, and replaced it by another. 1 The matter was 
brought before the senate, and because the case was not 
clear, the witnesses were put to the torture. The party 
accused being found guilty, and condemned, this kind of 
proceeding was carried so far, that it became capital for a 
man to beat his slave, or change his clothes, near the sta- 
tue of ^Augustus ; to carry his head stamped upon the 
coin, or cut in the stone of a ring, into a necessary house, 
or the stews ; or to reflect upon anything that had been 
either said or done by him. In fine, a person was con- 
demned to death, for suffering some honours to be de- 
creed to him in the colony where he lived, upon the same 
day on which they had formerly been decreed to Au- 
gustus. 

LIX. He was besides guilty of many barbarous actions, 
under the pretence of strictness and reformation of man- 
ners, but more to gratify his own savage disposition. 
Some verses were published, which displayed the present 
calamities of his reign, and anticipated the future. 2 

Asper et immitis, breviter vis omnia dicam ? 
Dispeream si te mater amare potest. 

1 It mattered not that the head substituted was Tiberius' s own. 
8 The verses were probably anonymous. 



TIBERIUS. 219 

Non es eques, quare ? non sunt tibi millia centum ! 

Omnia si quaeras, et Rhodos exsilium est. 
Aurea mutasti Saturni saecula, Caesar : 

Incolumi nam te, ferrea semper erunt. 
Fastidit vinum, quia jam sitit iste cruorem : 

Tarn bibit hunc avide, quam bibit ante merum. 
Adspice felicem sibi, non tibi, Romule, Sullam : 

Et Marium, si vis, adspice, sed reducem. 
Nee non Antoni civilia bella moventis 

Nee semel infectas adspice caeda manus, 
Et die, Roma perit : regnabit sanguine multo, 

Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exsilio. 

Obdurate wretch ! too fierce, too fell to move 
The least kind yearnings of a mother's love ! 
No knight thou art, as having no estate ; 
Long suffered'st thou in Rhodes an exile's fate, 
No more the happy Golden Age we see ; 
The Iron's come, and sure to last with thee. 
Instead of wine he thirsted for before, 
He wallows now in floods of human gore. 
Reflect, ye Romans, on the dreadful times, 
Made such by Marius, and by Sylla's crimes. 
Reflect how Antony's ambitious rage 
Twice scar'd with horror a distracted age. 
And say, Alas ! Rome's blood in streams will flow, 
When banish' d miscreants rule this world below. 

At first he would have it understood, that these satirical 
verses were drawn forth by the resentment of those who 
were impatient under the discipline of reformation, rather 
than that they spoke their real sentiments ; and he would 
frequently say, " Let them hate me, so long as they do 
but approve my conduct." 1 At length, however, his be- 
haviour showed that he was sensible they were too well 
founded. 

LX. A few days after his arrival at Capri, a fisherman 

2 Oderint dum probent : Caligula used a similar expression ; Oderint 
dum metuant. 



22o SUETONIUS. 

coming up to him unexpectedly, when he was desirous of 
privacy, and presenting him with a large mullet, he or- 
dered the man's face to be scrubbed with the fish ; being 
terrified with the thought of his having been able to creep 
upon him from the back of the island, over such rugged 
and steep rocks. The man, while undergoing the pun- 
ishment, expressing his joy that he had not likewise 
offered him a large crab which he had also taken, he 
ordered his face to be farther lacerated with its claws. 
He put to death one of the pretorian guards, for having 
stolen a peacock out of his orchard. In one of his jour- 
neys, his litter being obstructed by some bushes, he or- 
dered the officer whose duty it was to ride on and exa- 
mine the road, a centurion of the first cohorts, to be laid 
on his face upon the ground, and scourged almost to 
death. 

LXI. Soon afterwards, he abandoned himself to every 
species of cruelty, never wanting occasions of one kind 
or another, to serve as a pretext. He first fell upon the 
friends and acquaintances of his mother, then those of his 
grandsons, and his daughter-in-law, and lastly those of 
Sejanus ; after whose death he became cruel in the ex- 
treme. From this it appeared, that he had not been so 
much instigated by Sejanus, as supplied with occasions of 
gratifying his savage temper, when he wanted them. 
Though in a short memoir which he composed of his 
own life, he had the effrontery to write, " I have punished 
Sejanus, because I found him bent upon the destruction 
of the children of my son Germanicus," one of these he 
put to death, when he began to suspect Sejanus ; and 
another, after he was taken off. It would be tedious to 
relate all the numerous instances of his cruelty : suffice 
it to give a few examples, in their different kinds. Not a 
day passed without the punishment of some person or 



TIBERIUS. 221 

other, not excepting holidays, or those appropriated to 
the worship of the gods. Some were tried even on New- 
Year's-Day. Of many who were condemned, their wives 
and children shared the same fate ; and for those who 
were sentenced to death, the relations were forbid to put 
on mourning. Considerable rewards were voted for the 
prosecutors, and sometimes for the witnesses also. The 
information of any person, without exception, was taken ; 
and all offences were capital, even speaking a few words, 
though without any ill intention. A poet was charged 
with abusing Agamemnon ; and a historian, 1 for calling 
Brutus and Cassius " the last of the Romans." The two 
authors were immediately called to account, and their 
writings suppressed ; though they had been well received 
some years before, and read in the hearing of Augustus. 
Some, who were thrown into prison, were not only denied 
the solace of study, but debarred from all company and 
conversation. Many persons, when summoned to trial, 
stabbed themselves at home, to avoid the distress and ig- 
nominy of a public condemnation, which they were certain 
would ensue. Others took poison in the senate-house. 
The wounds were bound up, and all who had not expired, 
were carried, half-dead, and panting for life, to prison. 
Those who were put to death, were thrown down the 
Gemonian stairs, and then dragged into the Tiber. In 
one day, twenty were treated in this manner; and 
amongst them women and boys. Because, according 
to an ancient custom, it was not lawful to strangle virgins, 
the young girls were first deflowered by the executioner, 
and afterwards strangled. Those who were desirous to 

1 a. u. c. 778. Tacit. Annal. iv. The historian's name was A. Cre- 
mutius Cordo. Dio has preserved the passage, xlvii. p. 619. Brutus 
had already called Cassius "The last of the Romans," in his lamenta- 
tion over his dead body. 



222 SUETONIUS. 

die, were forced to live. For he thought death so slight 
a punishment, that upon hearing that Carnulius, one of 
the accused, who was under prosecution, had killed him- 
self," he exclaimed, " Carnulius has escaped me." In 
calling over his prisoners, when one of them requested 
the favour of a speedy death, he replied, " You are not 
yet restored to favour." A man of consular rank writes 
in his annals, that at table, where he himself was present 
with a large company, he was suddenly asked aloud by 
a dwarf who stood by amongst the buffoons, why Paco- 
nius, who was under prosecution for treason, lived so 
long. Tiberius immediately reprimanded him for his 
pertness ; but wrote to the senate a few days after, to 
proceed without delay to the punishment of Paconius. 

LXII. Exasperated by information he received respect- 
ing the death of his son Drusus, he carried his cruelty 
still farther. He imagined that he had died of a disease 
occasioned by his intemperance ; but finding that he had 
been poisoned by the contrivance of his wife Livilla, 1 and 
Sejanus, he spared no one from torture and death. He 
was so entirely occupied with the examination of this 
affair, for whole days together, that, upon being informed 
that the person in whose house he had lodged at Rhodes, 
and whom he had by a friendly letter invited to Rome, 
was arrived, he ordered him immediately to be put to the 
torture, as a party concerned in the enquiry. Upon find- 
ing his mistake, he commanded him to be put to death, 
that he might not publish the injury done him. The place 
of execution is still shown at Capri, where he ordered 
those who were condemned to die, after long and exqui- 
site tortures, to be thrown, before his eyes, from a preci- 

1 She was the sister of Germanicus, and Tacitus calls her Livia ; but 
Suetonius is in the habit of giving a fondling or diminutive term to the 
names of women, as Claudilla, for Claudia, Plautilla, &c. 



TIBERIUS. 223 

pice into the sea. There a party of soldiers belonging 

to the fleet waited for them, and broke their bones with 

poles and oars, lest they should have any life left in them. 
******* * 

Had not death prevented him, and Thrasyllus, designedly, 
as some say, prevailed with him to defer some of his cru- 
elties, in hopes of longer life, it is believed that he would 
have destroyed many more ; and not have spared even 
the rest of his grand-children : for he was jealous of 
Caius, and hated Tiberius as having been conceived in 
adultery. This conjecture is indeed highly probable ; for 
he used often to say, " Happy Priam, who survived all his 
children!" 1 

LXIII. Amidst these enormities, in how much fear and 
apprehension, as well as odium and detestation, he lived, 
is evident from many indications. He forbade the sooth- 
sayers to be consulted in private, and without some wit- 
nesses being present. He attempted to suppress the 
oracles in the neighbourhood of the city ; but being ter- 
rified by the divine authority of the Praenestine Lots, 2 he 
abandoned the design. For though they were sealed up 
in a box, and carried to Rome, yet they were not to be 
found in it until it was returned to the temple. More 
than one person of consular rank, appointed governors 
of provinces, he never ventured to dismiss to their re- 
spective destinations, but kept them until several years 
after, when he nominated their successors, while they still 
remained present with him. In the meantime they bore 
the title of their office ; and he frequently gave them 

1 Priam is said to have had no less than fifty sons and daughters ; 
some of the latter, however, survived him, as Hecuba, Helena, Polyx- 
ena, and others. 

2 There were oracles at Antium and Tibur. The " Praenestine Lots" 
are described by Cicero, De Divin. xi. 41. 



224 SUETONIUS. 

orders, which they took care to have executed by their 
deputies and assistants. 

LXIV. He never removed his daughter-in-law or grand- 
sons, 1 after their condemnation, to any place, but in fetters 
and in a covered litter, with a guard to hinder all who 
met them on the road, and travellers, from stopping to 
gaze at them. 

LXV. After Sejanus had plotted against him, though 
he saw that his birth-day was solemnly kept by the public, 
and divine honours paid to golden images of him in every 
quarter, yet it was with difficulty at last, and more by 
artifice than his imperial power, that he accomplished his 
death. In the first place, to remove him from about his 
person, under the pretext of doing him honour, he made 
him his colleague in his fifth consulship ; which, although 
then absent from the city, he took upon him for that pur- 
pose, long after his preceding consulship. Then, having 
flattered him with the hope of an alliance by marriage 
with one of his own kindred, and the prospect of the tri- 
bunitian authority, he suddenly, while Sejanus little ex- 
pected it, charged him with treason, in an abject and 
pitiful address to the senate ; in which, among other 
things, he begged them " to send one of the consuls, 
to conduct himself, a poor solitary old man, with a guard 
of soldiers, into their presence." Still distrustful, how- 
ever, and apprehensive of an insurrection, he ordered his 
grandson, Drusus, whom he still kept in confinement at 
Rome, to be set at liberty, and if occasion required, to 
head the troops. He had likewise ships in readiness to 
transport him to any of the legions to which he might 
consider it expedient to make his escape. Meanwhile, 
he was upon the watch, from the summit of a lofty cliff, 
for the signals which he had ordered to be made if any 

1 Agrippina, and Nero and Drusus. 



TIBERIUS. 225 

thing occurred, lest the messengers should be tardy. 
Even when he had quite foiled the conspiracy of Sejanus, 
he was still haunted as much as ever with fears and ap- 
prehensions, insomuch that he never once stirred out of 
the Villa Jovis for nine months after. 

LXVI. To the extreme anxiety of mind which he now 
experienced, he had the mortification to find superadded 
the most poignant reproaches from all quarters. Those 
who were condemned to die, heaped upon him the most 
opprobrious language in his presence, or by hand-bills 
scattered in the senators' seats in the theatre. These 
produced different effects : sometimes he wished, out of 
shame, to have all smothered and concealed ; at other 
times he would disregard what was said, and publish it 
himself. To this accumulation of scandal and open sar- 
casm, there is to be subjoined a letter from Artabanus, 
king of the Parthians, in which he upbraids him with his 
parricides, murders, cowardice, and lewdness, and advises 
him to satisfy the furious rage of his own people, which 
he had so justly excited, by putting an end to his life 
without delay. 

LXVII. At last, being quite weary with himself, he 
acknowledged his extreme misery, in a letter to the 
senate, which begun thus : " What to write to you, Con- 
script Fathers, or how to write, or what not to write at 
this time, may all the gods and goddesses pour upon my 
head a more terrible vengeance than that under which I 
feel myself daily sinking, if I can tell." Some are of 
opinion that he had a foreknowledge of those things, 
from his skill in the science of divination, and perceived 
long before what misery and infamy would at last come 
upon him ; and that for this reason, at the beginning of 
his reign, he had absolutely refused the title of the " Fa- 
ther of his Country," and the proposal of the senate to 
J 5 



226 SUETONIUS. 

swear to his acts; lest he should afterwards, to his greater 
shame, be found unequal to such extraordinary honours. 
This, indeed, may be justly inferred from the speeches 
which he made upon both those occasions ; as when he 
says, " I shall ever be the same, and shall never change 
my conduct, so long as I retain my senses ; but to avoid 
giving a bad precedent to posterity, the senate ought to 
beware of binding themselves to the acts of any person 
whatever, who might by some accident or other be in- 
duced to alter them." And again : " If ye should at any 
time entertain a jealousy of my conduct, and my entire 
affection for you, which heaven prevent by putting a 
period to my days, rather than I should live to see such 
an alteration in your opinion of me, the title of Father 
will add no honour to me, but be a reproach to you, for 
your rashness in conferring it upon me, or inconsistency 
in altering your opinion of me." 

LXVIII. In person he was large and robust ; of a sta- 
ture somewhat above the common size ; broad in the 
shoulders and chest, and proportionable in the rest of 
his frame. He used his left hand more readily and with 
more force than his right ; and his joints were so strong, 
that he could bore a fresh, sound apple through with his 
finger, and wound the head of a boy, or even a young 
man, with a fillip. He was of a fair complexion, and 
wore his hair so long behind, that it covered his neck, 
which was observed to be a mark of distinction affected 
by the family. He had a handsome face, but it was often 
full of pimples. His eyes, which were large, had a won- 
derful faculty of seeing in the night-time, and in the dark, 
for a short time only, and immediately after awaking from 
sleep ; but they soon grew dim again. He walked with 
his neck stiff and upright ; generally with a frowning 
countenance, being for the most part silent: when he 



TIBERIUS. 227 

spoke to those about him, it was very slowly, and usually 
accompanied with a slight gesticulation of his fingers. 
All which, being repulsive habits and signs of arrogance, 
were remarked by Augustus, who often endeavoured to 
excuse them to the senate and people, declaring that 
" they were natural defects, which proceeded from no 
viciousness of mind." He enjoyed a good state of 
health, without interruption, almost during the whole 
period of his rule ; though, from the thirtieth year of his 
age, he treated himself according to his own discretion, 
without any medical assistance. 

LXIX. In regard to the gods, and matters of religion, 
he discovered much indifference ; being greatly addicted 
to astrology, and fully persuaded that all things were 
governed by fate. Yet he was extremely afraid of light- 
ning, and when the sky was in a disturbed state, always 
wore a laurel crown on his head ; because it is supposed 
that the leaf of that tree is never touched by the light- 
ning. 

LXX. He applied himself with great diligence to the 
liberal arts, both Greek and Latin. In his Latin style, he 
affected to imitate the Messala Corvinus, 1 a venerable 
man, to whom he had paid much respect in his own early 
years. But he rendered his style obscure by excessive affec- 
tation and abstruseness, so that he was thought to speak 
better extempore, than in a premeditated discourse. He 
composed likewise a lyric ode, under the title of " A Lam- 
entation upon the Death of Lucius Caesar ; " and also some 
Greek poems, in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus, and 
Parthenius. 2 These poets he greatly admired, and placed 

1 He is mentioned before in the Life of Augustus, c. Iviii. and also 
by Horace, Cicero, and Tacitus. 

2 Obscure Greek poets, whose writings were either full of fabulous 
stories, or of an amatory kind. 



228 SUETONIUS. 

their works and statues in the public libraries, amongst 
the eminent authors of antiquity. On this account, most 
of the learned men of the time vied with each other in 
publishing observations upon them, which they addressed 
to him. His principal study, however, was the history of 
the fabulous ages, inquiring even into its trifling details 
in a ridiculous manner ; for he used to try the gramma- 
rians, a class of men which, as I have already observed, 
he much affected, with such questions as these : " Who 
was Hecuba's mother ? What name did Achilles assume 
among the virgins ? What was it that the Sirens used to 
sing?" And the first day that he entered the senate-house, 
after the death of Augustus, as if he intended to pay re- 
spect at once to his father's memory and to the gods, he 
made an offering of frankincense and wine, but without 
any music, in imitation of Minos, upon the death of his 
son. 

LXXI. Though he was ready and conversant with the 
Greek tongue, yet he did not use it everywhere ; but 
chiefly he avoided it in the senate-house, insomuch that 
having occasion to employ the word monopolium (mo- 
nopoly), he first begged pardon for being obliged to 
adopt a foreign word. And when, in a decree of the 
senate, the word ZpfiAqtw (emblem) was read, he proposed 
to have it changed, and that a Latin word should be sub- 
stituted in its room ; or, if no proper one could be found, 
to express the thing by circumlocution. A soldier who 
was examined as a witness upon a trial, in Greek, 1 he 
would not allow to reply, except in Latin. 

LXXII. During the whole time of his seclusion at 

1 It is suggested that the text should be amended, so that the sentence 
should read — "A Greek soldier;" for of what use could it have been 
to examine a man in Greek, and not allow him to give his replies in 
the same language? 



TIBERIUS. 229 

Capri, twice only he made an effort to visit Rome. Once 
he came in a galley as far as the gardens near the Nau- 
machia, but placed guards along the banks of the Tiber, 
to keep off all who should offer to come to meet him. 
The second time he travelled on the Appian way, 1 as far 
as the seventh mile-stone from the city, but he immedi- 
ately returned, without entering it, having only taken a 
view of the walls at a distance. For what reason he did 
not disembark in his first excursion, is uncertain ; but in 
the last, he was deterred from entering the city by a pro- 
digy. He was in the habit of diverting himself with a 
snake, and upon going to feed it with his own hand, ac- 
cording to custom, he found it devoured by ants : from 
which he was advised to beware of the fury of the mob. 
On this account, returning in all haste to Campania, he 
fell ill at Astura; 2 but recovering a little, went on to Cir- 
ceii. 3 And to obviate any suspicion of his being in a bad 
state of health, he was not only present at the sports in the 
camp, but encountered, with javelins, a wild boar, which 
was let loose in the arena. Being immediately seized 
with a pain in the side, and catching cold upon his over- 
heating himself in the exercise, he relapsed into a worse 
condition than he was before. He held out, however, for 
some time ; and sailing as far as Misenum, 4 omitted no- 

1 So called from Appius Claudius, the Censor, one of Tiberius' s an- 
cestors, who constructed it. It took a direction southward from Rome, 
through Campania to Brundusium, starting from what is the present 
Porta di San Sebastiano, from which the road to Naples takes its de- 
parture. 

2 A small town on the coast of Latium, and the present Nettuno. It 
was here that Cicero was slain by the satellites of Antony. 

3 A town on a promontory of the same dreary coast, between Antium 
and Terracina, built on a promontory surrounded by the sea and the 
marsh still called Circello. 

4 Misenum, a promontory to which -^Eneas is said to have given its 



2 3 o SUETONIUS. 

thing in his usual mode of life, not even in his entertain- 
ments, and other gratifications, partly from an ungovern- 
able appetite, and partly to conceal his condition. For 
Charicles, a physician, having obtained leave of absence, 
on his rising from table, took his hand to kiss it ; upon 
which Tiberius, supposing he did it to feel his pulse, de- 
sired him to stay and resume his place, and continued the 
entertainment longer than usual. Nor did he omit his 
usual custom of taking his station in the centre of the 
apartment, a lictor standing by him, while he took leave 
of each of the party by name. 

LXXIII. Meanwhile, finding, upon looking over the 
acts of the senate, " that some person under prosecution 
had been discharged, without being brought to a hear- 
ing," for he had only written cursorily that they had been 
denounced by an informer; he complained in a great 
rage that he was treated with contempt, and resolved at 
all hazards to return to Capri ; not daring to attempt any 
thing until he found himself in a place of security. But 
being detained by storms, and the increasing violence of 
his disorder, he died shortly afterwards, at a villa formerly 
belonging to Lucullus, in the seventy-eighth year of his 
age, 1 and the twenty- third of his reign, upon the seven- 
teenth of the calends of April [16th March], in the con- 
sulship of Cneius Acerronius Proculus and Caius Pontius 
Niger. Some think that a slow-consuming poison was 
given him by Caius. 2 Others say that during the interval 
of the intermittent fever with which he happened to be 

name from one of his followers. {yEn. ii. 234.) It is now called Capo 
di Misino, and shelters the harbour of Mola di Gaieta, belonging to 
Naples. This was one of the stations of the Roman fleet. 

1 Tacitus agrees with Suetonius as to the age of Tiberius at the time 
of his death. Dio states it more precisely, as being seventy-seven 
years, four months, and nine days. 

2 Caius Caligula, who became his successor. 



TIBERIUS. 231 

seized, upon asking for food, it was denied him. Others 
report, that he was stifled by a pillow thrown upon him, 1 
when, on his recovering from a swoon, he called for his 
ring, which had been taken from him in the fit. Seneca 
writes, "That finding himself dying, he took his signet 
ring off his finger, and held it a while, as if he would de- 
liver it to somebody; but put it again upon his finger, 
and lay for some time, with his left hand clenched, and 
without stirring ; when suddenly summoning his attend- 
ants, and no one answering the call, he rose ; but his 
strength failing him, he fell down at a short distance from 
his bed." 

LXXIV. Upon his last birth-day, he had brought a 
full-sized statue of the Timenian Apollo from Syracuse, 
a work of exquisite art, intending to place it in the library 
of the new temple ; 2 but he dreamt that the god appeared 
to him in the night, and assured him "that his statue could 
not be erected by him." A few days before he died, the 
Pharos at Capri was thrown down by an earthquake. 
And at Misenum, some embers and live coals, which were 
brought in to warm his apartment, went out, and after 
being quite cold, burst out into a flame again towards 
evening, and continued burning very brightly for several 
hours. 

LXXV. The people were so much elated at his death, 
that when they first heard the news, they ran up and 
down the city, some crying out " Away with Tiberius to 
the Tiber;" others exclaiming, "May the earth, the com- 
mon mother of mankind, and the infernal gods, allow him 
no abode in death, but amongst the wicked." Others 
threatened his body with the hook and the Gemonian 

1 Tacitus and Dio add that he was smothered under a heap of heavy 
clothes. 

2 In the temple of the Palatine Apollo. See Augustus, c. xxix. 



2 3 2 SUETONIUS. 

stairs, their indignation at his former cruelty being in- 
creased by a recent atrocity. It had been provided by 
an act of the senate, that the execution of condemned 
criminals should always be deferred until the tenth day 
after the sentence. Now this fell on the very day when 
the news of Tiberius's death arrived, and in consequence 
of which the unhappy men implored a reprieve, for mer- 
cy's sake ; but, as Caius had not yet arrived, and there 
was no one else to whom application could be made on 
their behalf, their guards, apprehensive of violating the 
law, strangled them, and threw them down the Gemonian 
stairs. This roused the people to a still greater abhor- 
rence of the tyrant's memory, since his cruelty continued 
in use even after he was dead. As soon as his corpse 
was begun to be moved from Misenum, many cried out 
for its being carried to Atella, 1 and being half burnt there 
in the amphitheatre. It was, however, brought to Rome, 
and burnt with the usual ceremony. 

LXXVI. He had made, about two years before, dupli- 
cates of his will, one written by his own hand, and the 
other by that of one of his freedmen ; and both were 
witnessed by some persons of very mean rank. He ap- 
pointed his two grandsons, Caius by Germanicus, and 
Tiberius by Drusus, joint heirs to his estate ; and upon 
the death of one of them, the other was to inherit the 
whole. He gave likewise many legacies ; amongst which 
were bequests to the Vestal Virgins, to all the soldiers, 
and each one of the people of Rome, and to the magis- 
trates of the several quarters of the city. 

1 Atella, a town between Capua and Naples, now called San Arpino, 
where there was an amphitheatre. The people seem to have raised the 
shout in derision, referring, perhaps, to the Atellan fables, mentioned 
in c. xiv. ; and in their fury they proposed that his body should only be 
grilled, as those of malefactors were, instead of being reduced to ashes. 



TIBERIUS. 



*33 



At the death of Augustus, there had elapsed so long a period from 
the overthrow of the republic by Julius Caesar, that few were now living 
who had been born under the ancient constitution of the Romans ; and 
the mild and prosperous administration of Augustus, during forty-four 
years, had by this time reconciled the minds of the people to a despotic 
government. Tiberius, the adopted son of the former sovereign, was 
of mature age ; and though he had hitherto lived, for the most part, 
abstracted from any concern with public affairs, yet, having been brought 
up in the family of Augustus, he was acquainted with his method of 
government, which, there was reason to expect, he would render the 
model of his own. Livia, too, his mother, and the relict of the late 
emperor, was still living, a woman venerable by years, who had long 
been familiar with the councils of Augustus, and from her high rank, as 
well as uncommon affability, possessed an extensive influence amongst 
all classes of the people. 

Such were the circumstances in favour of Tiberius's succession at the 
demise of Augustus ; but there were others of a tendency disadvanta- 
geous to his views. His temper was haughty and reserved : Augustus 
had often apologised for the ungraciousness of his manners. He was 
disobedient to his mother ; and though he had not openly discovered 
any propensity to vice, he enjoyed none of those qualities which usu- 
ally conciliate popularity. To these considerations it is to be added, 
that Postumus Agrippa, the grandson of Augustus by Julia, was living; 
and if consanguinity was to be the rule of succession, his right was 
indisputably preferable to that of an adopted son. Augustus had sent 
this youth into exile a few years before ; but, towards the close of his 
life, had expressed a design of recalling him, with the view, as was sup- 
posed, of appointing him his successor. The father of young Agrippa 
had been greatly beloved by the Romans \ and the fate of his mother, 
Julia, though she was notorious for her profligacy, had ever been re- 
garded by them with peculiar sympathy and tenderness. Many, there- 
fore, attached to the son the partiality entertained for his parents ; which 
was increased not only by a strong suspicion, but a general surmise, that 
his elder brothers, Caius and Lucius, had been violently taken off, to 
make way for the succession of Tiberius. That an obstruction was 
apprehended to Tiberius's succession from this quarter, is put beyond 
all doubt, when we find that the death of Augustus was industriously 
kept secret, until young Agrippa should be removed ; who, it is gen- 
erally agreed, was dispatched by an order from Livia and Tiberius con- 
jointly, or at least from the former. Though, by this act, there re- 
mained no rival to Tiberius, yet the consciousness of his own want of 



234 SUETONIUS. 

pretensions to the Roman throne, seems to have still rendered him dis- 
trustful of the succession ; and that he should have quietly obtained it, 
without the voice of the people, the real inclination of the senate, or 
the support of the army, can be imputed only to the influence of his 
mother, and his own dissimulation. Ardently solicitous to attain the 
object, yet affecting a total indifference ; artfully prompting the senate 
to give him the charge of the government, at the time that he inti- 
mated an invincible reluctance to accept it ; his absolutely declining it 
in perpetuity, but fixing no time for an abdication ; his deceitful insin- 
uation of bodily infirmities, with hints likewise of approaching old age, 
that he might allay in the senate all apprehensions of any great dura- 
tion of his power, and repress in his adopted son, Germanicus, the emo- 
tions of ambition to displace him ; form altogether a scene of the most 
insidious policy, inconsistency, and dissimulation. 

In this period died, in the eighty-sixth year of her age, Livia Dru- 
silla, mother of the emperor, and the relict of Augustus, whom she 
survived fifteen years. She was the daughter of L. Drusus Calidianus 
and married Tiberius Claudius Nero, by whom she had two sons, Tibe- 
rius and Drusus. The conduct of this lady seems to justify the remark 
of Caligula, that " she was an Ulysses in a woman's dress." Octavius 
first saw her as she fled from the danger which threatened her husband, 
who had espoused the cause of Antony ; and though she was then preg- 
nant, he resolved to marry her ; whether with her own inclination or 
not, is left by Tacitus undetermined. To pave the way for this union, 
he divorced his wife Scribonia, and with the approbation of the Augurs, 
which he could have no difficulty in obtaining, celebrated his. nuptials 
with Livia. There ensued from this marriage no issue, though much 
desired by both parties ; but Livia retained, without interruption, an 
unbounded ascendancy over the emperor, whose confidence she abused, 
while the uxorious husband little suspected that he was cherishing in his 
bosom a viper who was to prove the destruction of his house. She 
appears to have entertained a predominant ambition of giving an heir 
to the Roman empire; and since it could not be done by any fruit of 
her marriage with Augustus, she resolved on accomplishing that end in 
the person of Tiberius, the eldest son by her former husband. The 
plan which she devised for this purpose, was to exterminate all the male 
offspring of Augustus by his daughter Julia, who was married to Agrippa; 
a stratagem which, when executed, would procure for Tiberius, through 
the means of adoption, the eventual succession to the empire. The 
cool yet sanguinary policy, and the patient perseverance of resolution, 
with which she prosecuted her design, have seldom been equalled. 



TIBERIUS. 235 

While the sons of Julia were yet young, and while there was still a pos- 
sibility that she herself might have issue by Augustus, she suspended 
her project, in the hope, perhaps, that accident or disease might ope- 
rate in its favour ; but when the natural term of her constitution had 
put a period to her hopes of progeny, and when the grandsons of the 
emperor were risen to the years of manhood, and had been adopted 
by him, she began to carry into execution what she long had medi- 
tated. The first object devoted to destruction was C. Caesar Agrippi, 
the eldest of Augustus's grandsons. This promising youth was sent to 
Armenia, upon an expedition against the Persians; and Lollius, who 
had been his governor, either accompanied him thither from Rome, or 
met him in the East, where he had obtained some appointment. From 
the hand of this traitor, perhaps under the pretext of exercising the 
authority of a preceptor, but in reality instigated by Livia, the young 
prince received avfatal blow, of which he died some time after. 

The manner of Cams' s death seems to have been carefully kept from 
the knowledge of Augustus, who promoted Lollius to the consulship, and 
made him governor of a province; but, by his rapacity in this station, 
he afterwards incurred the emperor's displeasure. The true character 
of this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as 
the sagacity of the emperor; for in two epistles addressed to Lollius, 
he mentions him as great and accomplished in the superlative degree ; 
maxime Zolli, liberrime Lolli ; so imposing had been the manners and 
address of this deceitful courtier. 

Lucius, the second son of Julia, was banished into Campania, for 
using, as it is said, seditious language against his grandfather. In the 
seventh year of his exile, Augustus proposed to recall him ; but Livia 
and Tiberius, dreading the consequences of his being restored to the 
emperor's favour, put in practice the expedient of having him immedi- 
ately assassinated. Postumus Agrippa, the third son, incurred the dis- 
pleasure of his grandfather in the same way as Lucius, and was confined 
at Surrentum, where he remained a prisoner until he was put to death 
by the order either of Livia alone, or in conjunction with Tiberius, as 
was before observed. 

Such was the catastrophe, through the means of Livia, of all the 
grandsons of Augustus ; and reason justifies the inference, that she who 
scrupled not to lay violent hands upon those young men, had formerly 
practised every artifice that could operate towards rendering them ob- 
noxious to the emperor. We may even ascribe to her dark intrigues 
the dissolute conduct of Julia : for the woman who could secretly act 
as procuress to her own husband, would feel little restraint upon her 



236 SUETONIUS. 

mind against corrupting his daughter, when such an effect might con- 
tribute to answer the purpose which she had in view. But in the ingra- 
titude of Tiberius, however undutiful and reprehensible in a son towards 
a parent, she at last experienced a just retribution for the crimes in 
which she had trained him to procure the succession to the empire. 
To the disgrace of her sex, she introduced amongst the Romans the 
horrible practice of domestic murder, little known before the times 
when the thirst or intoxication of unlimited power had vitiated the 
social affections ; and she transmitted to succeeding ages a pernicious 
example, by which immoderate ambition might be gratified, at the 
expense of every moral obligation, as well as of humanity. 

One of the first victims in the sanguinary reign of the present em- 
peror, was Germanicus, the son of Drusus, Tiberius' s own brother, and 
who had been adopted by his uncle himself. Under any sovereign, of 
a temper different from that of Tiberius, this amiable and meritorious 
prince would have been held in the highest esteem. At the death of 
his grandfather Augustus, he was employed in a war in Germany, where 
he greatly distinguished himself by his military achievements ; and as 
soon as intelligence of that event arrived, the soldiers, by whom he was 
extremely beloved, unanimously saluted him emperor. Refusing, how- 
ever, to accept this mark of their partiality, he persevered in allegiance 
to the government of his uncle, and prosecuted the war with success. 
Upon the conclusion of this expedition, he was sent, with the title of 
emperor in the East, to repress the seditions of the Armenians, in 
which he was equally successful. But the fame which he acquired, 
served only to render him an object of jealousy to Tiberius, by whose 
order he was secretly poisoned at Daphne, near Antioch, in the thirty- 
fourth year of his age. The news of Germanicus's death was received 
at Rome with universal lamentation ; and all ranks of the people en- 
tertained an opinion, that, had he survived Tiberius, he would have 
restored the freedom of the republic. The love and gratitude of the 
Romans decreed many honours to his memory. It was ordered, that 
his name should be sung in a solemn procession of the Salii ; that 
crowns of oak, in allusion to his victories, should be placed upon 
curule chairs in the hall pertaining to the priests of Augustus ; and that 
an effigy of him in ivory should be drawn upon a chariot, preceding the 
ceremonies of the Circensian games. Triumphal arches were erected, 
one at Rome, another on the banks of the Rhine, and a third upon 
Mount Amanus in Syria, with inscriptions of his achievements, and 
that he died for his services to the republic. 1 

1 Tacit. Annal. lib. ii. 



TIBERIUS. 237 

His obsequies were celebrated, not with the display of images and 
funeral pomp, but with the recital of his praises and the virtues which 
rendered him illustrious. From a resemblance in his personal accom- 
plishments, his age, the manner of his death, and the vicinity of Daphne 
to Babylon, many compared his fate to that of Alexander the Great. 
He was celebrated for humanity and benevolence, as well as military 
talents, and amidst the toils of war, found leisure to cultivate the arts 
of literary genius. He composed two comedies in Greek, some epi- 
grams, and a translation of Aratus into Latin verse. He married Agrip- 
pina, the daughter of M. Agrippa, by whom he had nine children. 
This lady, who had accompanied her husband into the east, carried his 
ashes to Italy, and accused his murderer, Piso ; who, unable to bear up 
against the public odium incurred by that transaction, laid violent hands 
upon himself. Agrippina was now nearly in the same predicament with 
regard to Tiberius, that Ovid had formerly been in respect of Augustus. 
He was sensible, that when she accused Piso, she was not ignorant of 
the person by whom the perpetrator of the murder had been instigated ; 
and her presence, therefore, seeming continually to reproach him with 
his guilt, he resolved to rid himself of a person become so obnoxious 
to his sight, and banished her to the island of Pandataria, where she 
died some time afterwards with famine. 

But it was not sufficient to gratify this sanguinary tyrant, that he had, 
without any cause, cut off both Germanicus and his wife Agrippina : 
the distinguished merits and popularity of that prince were yet to be 
revenged upon his children; and accordingly he set himself to invent 
a pretext for their destruction. After endeavouring in vain, by various 
artifices, to provoke the resentment of Nero and Drusus against him, 
he had recourse to false accusation, and not only charged them with 
seditious designs, to which their tender years were ill adapted, but with 
vices of a nature the most scandalous. By a sentence of the senate, 
which manifested the extreme servility of that assembly, he procured 
them both to be declared open enemies to their country. Nero he 
banished to the island of Pontia, where, like his unfortunate mother, 
he miserably perished by famine ; and Drusus was doomed to the same 
fate, in the lower part of the Palatium, after suffering for nine days the 
violence of hunger, and having, as is related, devoured part of his bed. 
The remaining son, Caius, on account of his vicious disposition, he 
resolved to appoint his successor on the throne, that, after his own 
death, a comparison might be made in favour of his own memory, 
when the Romans should be governed by a sovereign yet more vicious 
and more tyrannical, if possible, than himself. 



238 SUETONIUS. 

Sejanus, the minister in the present reign, imitated with success, for 
some time, the hypocrisy of his master ; and, had his ambitious temper, 
impatient of attaining its object, allowed him to wear the mask for a 
longer period, he might have gained the imperial diadem ; in the pur- 
suit of which he was overtaken by that fate which he merited still more 
by his cruelties than his perfidy to Tiberius. This man was a native of 
Volsinium in Tuscany, and the son of a Roman knight. He had first 
insinuated himself into the favour of Caius Caesar, the grandson of 
Augustus, after whose death he courted the friendship of Tiberius, and 
obtained in a short time his entire confidence, which he improved to 
the best advantage. The object which he next pursued, was to gain 
the attachment of the senate, and the officers of the army; besides 
whom, with a new kind of policy, he endeavoured to secure in his 
interest every lady of distinguished connections, by giving secretly to 
each of them a promise of marriage, as soon as he should arrive at the 
sovereignty. The chief obstacles in his way were, the sons and grand- 
sons of Tiberius ; and these he soon sacrificed to his ambition, under 
various pretences. Drusus, the eldest of this progeny, having in a fit 
of passion struck the favourite, was destined by him to destruction. 
For this purpose, he had the presumption to seduce Livia, the wife of 
Drusus, to whom she had borne several children ; and she consented to 
marry her adulterer upon the death of her husband, who was soon after 
poisoned, through the means of an eunuch named Lygdus, by order of 
her and Sejanus. 

Drusus was the son of Tiberius by Vipsania, one of Agrippa's daugh- 
ters. He displayed great intrepidity during the war in the provinces 
of Illyricum and Pannonia, but appears to have been dissolute in his 
morals. Horace is said to have written the Ode in praise of Drusus at 
the desire of Augustus; and while the poet celebrates the military 
courage of the prince, he insinuates indirectly a salutary admonition to 
the cultivation of the civil virtues : 

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, 
Rectique cultus pectora roborant : 
Utcunque defecere mores, 

Dedecorant bene nata culpse. — Ode iv. 4. 

Yet sage instructions to refine the soul 

And raise the genius, wondrous aid impart, 

Conveying inward, as they purely roll, 

Strength to the mind and vigour to the heart : 

When mortals fail, the stains of vice disgrace 

The fairest honours of the noblest race. — Francis. 



TIBERIUS. 



239 



Upon the death of Drusus, Sejanus openly avowed a desire of mar- 
rying the widowed princess ; but Tiberius opposing this measure, and 
at the same time recommending Germanicus to the senate as his suc- 
cessor in the empire, the mind of Sejanus was more than ever inflamed 
by the united, and now furious, passions of love and ambition. He 
therefore urged his demand with increased importunity ; but the empe- 
ror still refusing his consent, and things being not yet ripe for an im- 
mediate revolt, Sejanus thought nothing so favourable for the prosecu- 
tion of his designs as the absence of Tiberius from the capital. With 
this view, under the pretence of relieving his master from the cares of 
government, he persuaded him to retire to a distance from Rome. The 
emperor, indolent and luxurious, approved of the proposal, and retired 
into Campania, leaving to his ambitious minister the whole direction 
of the empire. Had Sejanus now been governed by common prudence 
and moderation, he might have attained to the accomplishment of all 
his wishes ; but a natural impetuosity of temper, and the intoxication 
of power, precipitated him into measures which soon effected his de- 
struction. As if entirely emancipated from the control of a master, 
he publicly declared himself sovereign of the Roman empire, and that 
Tiberius, who had by this time retired to Capri, was only the depend- 
ent prince of that tributary island. He even went so far in degrading 
the emperor, as to have him introduced in a ridiculous light upon the 
stage. Advice of Sejanus' s proceedings was soon carried to the emperor 
at Capri ; his indignation was immediately excited ; and with a confi- 
dence founded upon an authority exercised for several years, he sent 
orders for accusing Sejanus before the senate. This mandate no sooner 
arrived, than the audacious minister was deserted by his adherents ; he 
was in a short time after seized without resistance, and strangled in 
prison the same day. 

Human nature recoils with horror at the cruelties of this execrable 
tyrant, who, having first imbrued his hands in the blood of his own 
relations, proceeded to exercise them upon the public with indiscrimi- 
nate fury. Neither age nor sex afforded any exemption from his insa- 
tiable thirst for blood. Innocent children were condemned to death, 
and butchered in the presence of their parents ; virgins, without any 
imputed guilt, were sacrificed to a similar destiny ; but there being an 
ancient custom of not strangling females in that situation, they were 
first deflowered by the executioner, and afterwards strangled, as if an 
atrocious addition to cruelty could sanction the exercise of it. Fathers 
were constrained by violence to witness the death of their own chil- 
dren ; and even the tears of a mother, at the execution of her child, 



240 SUETONIUS. 

were punished as a capital offence. Some extraordinary calamities, oc- 
casioned by accident, added to the horrors of the reign. A great num- 
ber of houses on Mount Ccelius were destroyed by fire; and by the fall 
of a temporary building at Fidenae, erected for the purpose of exhibit- 
ing public shows, about twenty thousand persons were either greatly 
hurt, or crushed to death in the ruins. 

By another fire which afterwards broke out, a part of the Circus was 
destroyed, with the numerous buildings on Mount Aventine. The only 
act of munificence displayed by Tiberius during his reign, was upon the 
occasion of those fires, when, to qualify the severity of his government, 
he indemnified the most considerable sufferers for the loss they had 
sustained. 

Through the whole of his life, Tiberius seems to have conducted 
himself with a uniform repugnance to nature. Affable on a few occa- 
sions, but in general averse to society, he indulged, from his earliest 
years, a moroseness of disposition, which counterfeited the appearance 
of austere virtue ; and in the decline of life, when it is common to 
reform from juvenile indiscretions, he launched forth into excesses, of 
a kind the most unnatural and most detestable. Considering the vicious 
passions which had ever brooded in his heart, it may seem surprising 
that he restrained himself within the bounds of decency during so many 
years after his accession ; but though utterly destitute of reverence or 
affection for his mother, he still felt, during her life, a filial awe upon his 
mind : and after her death, he was actuated by a slavish fear of Sejanus, 
until at last political necessity absolved him likewise from this restraint. 
These checks being both removed, he rioted without any control, either 
from sentiment or authority. 

Pliny relates, that the art of making glass malleable was actually dis- 
covered under the reign of Tiberius, and that the shop and tools of the 
artist were destroyed, lest, by the establishment of this invention, gold 
and silver should lose their value. Dion adds, that the author of the 
discovery was put to death. 

The gloom which darkened the Roman capital during this melan- 
choly period, shed a baleful influence on the progress of science through- 
out the empire, and literature languished during the present reign, in 
the same proportion as it had flourished in the preceding. It is doubtful 
whether such a change might not have happened in some degree, even 
had the government of Tiberius been equally mild with that of his pre- 
decessor. The prodigious fame of the writers of the Augustan age, by 
repressing emulation, tended to a general diminution of the efforts of 
genius for some time; while the banishment of Ovid, it is probable, 



TIBERIUS. 241 

and the capital punishment of a subsequent poet, for censuring the 
character of Agamemnon, operated towards the farther discouragement 
of poetical exertions. There now existed no circumstance to counter- 
balance these disadvantages. Genius no longer found a patron eithe'r 
in the emperor or his minister ; and the gates of the palace were shut 
against all who cultivated the elegant pursuits of the Muses. Panders, 
catamites, assassins, wretches stained with every crime, were the con- 
stant attendants, as the only fit companions, of the tyrant who now 
occupied the throne. We are informed, however, that even this empe- 
ror had a taste for the liberal arts, and that he composed a lyric poem 
upon the death of Lucius Caesar, with some Greek poems in imitation 
of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius. But none of these has been 
transmitted to posterity : and if we should form an opinion of them 
upon the principle of Catullus, that to be a good poet one ought to be 
a good man, there is little reason to regret that they have perished. 



16 



CAIUS CAESAR CALIGULA. 

I. Germanicus, the father of Caius Caesar, and son of 
Drusus and the younger Antonia, was, after his adoption 
by Tiberius, his uncle, preferred to the quaestorship 1 five 
years before he had attained the legal age, and immedi- 
ately upon the expiration of that office, to the consulship. 2 
Having been sent to the army in Germany, he restored 
order among the legions, who, upon the news of Augus- 
tus's death, obstinately refused to acknowledge Tiberius 
as emperor, 3 and offered to place him at the head of the 
state. In which affair it is difficult to say, whether his 
regard to filial duty, or the firmness of his resolution, was 
most conspicuous. Soon afterwards he defeated the ene- 
my, and obtained the honours of a triumph. Being then 
made consul for the second time, 4 before he could enter 
upon his office he was obliged to set out suddenly for the 
east, where, after he had conquered the king of Armenia, 
and reduced Cappadocia into the form of a province, he 
died at Antioch, of a lingering distemper, in the thirty- 
fourth year of his age, 5 not without the suspicion of being 
poisoned. For besides the livid spots which appeared all 
over his body, and a foaming at the mouth; when his 
corpse was burnt, the heart was found entire among the 
bones ; its nature being such, as it is supposed, that when 
tainted by poison, it is indestructible by fire. 6 

1 a. u. c. 757. a. u. c. 765. s a. u. c. 770. 

4 A. U. C 767. 5 A. U. C. 771. 

6 This opinion, like some others which occur in Suetonius, may justly 
242 




THE E M 






CALIGULA. 243 

II. It was a prevailing opinion that he was taken off by 
the contrivance of Tiberius, and through the means of 
Cneius Piso. This person, who was about the same time 
prefect of Syria, and made no secret of his position being 
such, that he must either offend the father or the son, 
loaded Germanicus, even during his sickness, with the 
most unbounded and scurrilous abuse, both by word and 
deed ; for which, upon his return to Rome, he narrowly 
escaped being torn to pieces by the people, and was con- 
demned to death by the senate. 

III. It is generally agreed, that Germanicus possessed 
all the noblest endowments of body and mind in a higher 
degree than had ever before fallen to the lot of any man ; 
a handsome person, extraordinary courage, great pro- 
ficiency in eloquence and other branches of learning, 
both Greek and Roman ; besides a singular humanity, 
and a behaviour so engaging, as to captivate the affec- 
tions of all about him. The slenderness of his lees did 
not correspond with the symmetry and beauty of his per- 
son in other respects ; but this defect was at length cor- 
rected by his habit of riding after meals. In battle, he 
often engaged and slew an enemy in single combat. He 
pleaded causes, even after he had the honour of a tri- 
umph. Among other fruits of his studies, he left behind 
him some Greek comedies. Both at home and abroad he 
always conducted himself in a manner the most unas- 
suming. On entering any free and confederate town, he 
never would be attended by any of his lictors. When- 
ever he heard, in his travels, of the tombs of illustrious 
men, he made offerings over them to the infernal deities. 

be considered as a vulgar error ; and if the heart was found entire, it 
must have been owing to the weakness of the fire, rather than to any 
quality communicated to the organ, of resisting the power of that ele- 
ment. 



244 SUETONIUS. 

He gave a common grave, under a mound of earth, to 
the scattered relics of the legionaries slain under Varus, 
and was the first to put his hand to the work of collecting 
and bringing them to the place of burial. He was so 
extremely mild and gentle to his enemies, whoever they 
were, or on what account soever they bore him enmity, 
that, although Piso rescinded his decrees, and for a long 
time severely harassed his dependents, he never showed 
the smallest resentment, until he found himself attacked 
by magical charms and imprecations ; and even then the 
only steps he took was to renounce all friendship with 
him, according to ancient custom, and to exhort his ser- 
vants to avenge his death, if any thing untoward should 
befal him. 

IV. He reaped the fruit of his noble qualities in abun- 
dance, being so much esteemed and beloved by his 
friends, that Augustus (to say nothing of his other rela- 
tions) being a long time in doubt, whether he should not 
appoint him his successor, at last ordered Tiberius to 
adopt him. He was so extremely popular, that many 
authors tell us, the crowds of those who went to meet 
him upon his coming to any place, or to attend him at his 
departure, were so prodigious, that he was sometimes 
in danger of his life ; and that upon his return from Ger- 
many, after he had quelled the mutiny in the army there, 
all the cohorts of the pretorian guards marched out to 
meet him, notwithstanding the order that only two should 
go ; and that all the people of Rome, both men and 
women, of every age, sex, and rank, flocked as far as the 
twentieth mile-stone to attend his entrance. 

V. At the time of his death, however, and afterwards, 
they displayed still greater and stronger proofs of their 
extraordinary attachment to him. The day on which he 
died, stones were thrown at the temples, the altars of the 



CALIGULA. - 245 

gods demolished, the household gods, in some cases, 
thrown into the streets, and new-born infants exposed. 
It is even said that barbarous nations, both those engaged 
in intestine wars, and those in hostilities against us, all 
agreed to a cessation of arms, as if they had been mourn- 
ing for some very near and common friend ; that some 
petty kings shaved their beards and their wives' heads, 
in token of their extreme sorrow ; and that the king of 
kings 1 forbore his exercise of hunting and feasting with 
his nobles, which, amongst the Parthians, is equivalent to 
a cessation of all business in a time of public mourning 
with us. 

VI. At Rome, upon the first news of his sickness, the 
city was thrown into great consternation and grief, wait- 
ing impatiently for farther intelligence ; when suddenly, 
in the evening, a report, without any certain author, was 
spread, that he was recovered ; upon which the people 
flocked with torches and victims to the Capitol, and were 
in such haste to pay the vows they had made for his re- 
covery, that they almost broke open the doors. Tiberius 
was roused from out of his sleep with the noise of the 
people congratulating one another, and singing about the 
streets, 

Salva Roma, salva patria, salvus est Germanicus, 

Rome is safe, our country safe, for our Germanicus is safe. 

But when certain intelligence of his death arrived, the 
mourning of the people could neither be assuaged by 

1 The magnificent title of King of Kings has been assumed, at dif- 
ferent times, by various potentates. The person to whom it is here 
applied, is the king of Parthia. Under the kings of Persia, and even 
under the Syro-Macedonian kings, this country was of no considera- 
tion, and reckoned a part of Hyrcania. But upon the revolt of the 
East from the Syro-Macedonians, at the instigation of Arsaces, the 
Parthians are said to have conquered eighteen kingdoms. 



2 4 6 • SUETONIUS. 

consolation, nor restrained by edicts, and it continued 
during the holidays in the month of December. The 
atrocities of the subsequent times contributed much to 
the glory of Germanicus, and the endearment of his 
memory; all people supposing, and with reason, that 
the fear and awe of him had laid a restraint upon the 
cruelty of Tiberius, which broke out soon afterwards. 

VII. Germanicus married Agrippina, the daughter of 
Marcus Agrippa and Julia, by whom he had nine chil- 
dren, two of whom died in their infancy, and another a 
few years after ; a sprightly boy, whose effigy, in the cha- 
acter of a Cupid, Livia set up in the temple of Venus in 
the Capitol. Augustus also placed another statue of 
him in his bed-chamber, and used to kiss it as often as he 
entered the apartment. The rest survived their father ; 
three daughters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, who 
were born in three successive years ; and as many sons, 
Nero, Drusus, and Caius Caesar. Nero and Drusus, at 
the accusation of Tiberius, were declared public enemies. 

VIII. Caius Caesar was born on the day before the cal- 
ends [31st August] of September, at the time his father 
and Caius Fonteius Capito were consuls. 1 But where he 
was born is rendered uncertain from the number of 
places which are said to have given him birth. Cneius 
Lentulus Gaetulicus 2 says that he was born at Tibur; 
Pliny the younger, in the country of the Treviri, at a vil- 
lage called Ambiatinus, above Confluentes ; 3 and he alle- 

1 a. u. c. 765. 

2 It does not appear that Gaetulicus wrote any historical work, but 
Martial, Pliny, and others, describe him as a respectable poet. 

3 Supra Confluentes ; The German tribe here mentioned occupied the 
country between the Rhine and the Meuse, and gave their name to 
Treves (Treviri), its chief town. Coblentz had its ancient name of 
Confluentes, from its standing at the junction of the two rivers. The 



CALIGULA. 247 

ges, as a proof of it, that altars are there shown with 
this inscription : " For Agrippina's child-birth." Some 
verses which were published in his reign, intimate that he 
was born in the winter quarters of the legions, 

In castris natus, patriis nutritius in armis, 

Jam designati principis omen erat. 
Born in the camp, and trained in every toil 
Which taught his sire the haughtiest foes to foil ; 
Destin'd he seem'd by fate to raise his name, 
And rule the empire with Augustan fame. 

I find in the public registers that he was born at Antium. 
Pliny charges Gaetulicus as guilty of an arrant forgery, 
merely to soothe the vanity of a conceited young prince, 
by giving him the lustre of being born in a city sacred to 
Hercules ; and says that he advanced this false assertion 
with the more assurance, because, the year before the 
birth of Caius, Germanicus had a son of the same name 
born at Tibur ; concerning whose amiable childhood and 
premature death I have already spoken. 1 Dates clearly 
prove that Pliny is mistaken ; for the writers of Augus- 
tus's history all agree, that Germanicus, at the expiration 
of his consulship, was sent into Gaul, after the birth of 
Caius. Nor will the inscription upon the altar serve to 
establish Pliny's opinion ; because Agrippina was deliv- 
ered of two daughters in that country, and any child-birth, 
without regard to sex, is called puerperium, as the an- 
cients used to call girls puerce, and boys puelli. There is 
also extant a letter written by Augustus, a few months 
before his death, to his granddaughter Agrippina, about 
the same Caius (for there was then no other child of hers 
living under that name). He writes as follows: "I gave 

exact site of the village in which Caligula was born is not known. 
Cluverius conjectures that it may be Cape lie. 
1 Chap. vii. 



248 SUETONIUS. 

orders yesterday for Talarius and Asellius to set out on 
their journey towards you, if the gods permit, with your 
child Caius, upon the fifteenth of the calends of June [18th 
May]. I also send with him a physician of mine, and I 
wrote to Germanicus that he may retain him if he pleases. 
Farewell, my dear Agrippina, and take what care you can 
to come safe and well to your Germanicus.'* I imagine 
it is sufficiently evident that Caius could not be born at a 
place to which he was carried from The City when almost 
two years old. The same considerations must likewise 
invalidate the evidence of the verses, and the rather, be- 
cause the author is unknown. The only authority, there- 
fore, upon which we can depend in this matter, is that of 
the acts, and the public register ; especially as he always 
preferred Antium to every other place of retirement, and 
entertained for it all that fondness which is commonly 
attached to one's native soil. It is said, too, that, upon 
his growing weary of the city, he designed to have trans- 
ferred thither the seat of empire. 

IX. It was to the jokes of the soldiers in the camp 
that he owed the name of Caligula, 1 he having been 
brought up among them in the dress of a common sol- 
dier. How much his education amongst them recom- 
mended him to their favour and affection, was sufficiently 
apparent in the mutiny upon the death of Augustus, 
when the mere sight of him appeased their fury, though 
it had risen to a great height. For they persisted in it, 
until they observed that he was sent away to a neigh- 
bouring city, 2 to secure him against all danger. Then, at 

1 The name was derived from Caliga, a kind of boot, studded with 
nails, used by the common soldiers in the Roman army. 

2 According to Tacitus, who gives an interesting account of these 
occurrences, Treves was the place of refuge to which the young Caius 
was conveyed. — Annal. i. 



CALIGULA. 249 

last, they began to relent, and, stopping the chariot in 
which he was conveyed, earnestly deprecated the odium 
to which such a proceeding would expose them. 

X. He likewise attended his father in his expedition to 
Syria. After his return, he lived first with his mother, 
and, when she was banished, with his great-grandmother, 
Livia Augusta, in praise of whom, after her decease, 
though then only a boy, he pronounced a funeral oration 
in the Rostra. He was then transferred to the family of 
his grandmother, Antonia, and afterwards, in the twen- 
tieth year of his age, being called by Tiberius to Capri, 
he in one and the same day assumed the manly habit, 
and shaved his beard, but without receiving any of the 
honours which had been paid to his brothers on a similar 
occasion. While he remained in that island, many insid- 
ious artifices were practised, to extort from him com- 
plaints against Tiberius, but by his -circumspection he 
avoided falling into the snare. 1 He affected to take no 
more notice of the ill-treatment of his relations, than if 
nothing had befallen them. With regard to his own suf- 
ferings, he seemed utterly insensible of them, and behaved 
with such obsequiousness to his grandfather 2 and all about 
him, that it was justly said of him, " There never was a 
better servant, nor a worse master." 

XL But he could not even then conceal his natural dis- 
position to cruelty and lewdness. He delighted in wit- 
nessing the infliction of punishments, and frequented 
taverns and bawdy-houses in the night-time, disguised in a 
periwig and a long coat ; and was passionately addicted 
to the theatrical arts of singing and dancing. All these 
levities Tiberius readily connived at, in hopes that they 

1 In c. liv. of Tiberius, we have seen that his brothers Drusus and 
Nero fell a sacrifice to these artifices. 

2 Tiberius, who was the adopted father of Germanicus. 



250 SUETONIUS. 

might perhaps correct the roughness of his temper, which 
the sagacious old man so well understood, that he often 
said, " That Caius was destined to be the ruin of himself 
and all mankind ; and that he was rearing a hydra 1 for 
the people of Rome, and a Phaeton for all the world. 2 

XII. Not long afterwards, he married Junia Claudilla, 
the daughter of Marcus Silanus, a man of the highest 
rank. Being then chosen augur in the room of his bro- 
ther Drusus, before he could be inaugurated he was ad- 
vanced to the pontificate, with no small commendation of 
his dutiful behaviour, and great capacity. The situation 
of the court likewise was at this time favourable to his 
fortunes, as it was now left destitute of support, Sejanus 
being suspected, and soon afterwards taken off; and he 
was by degrees flattered with the hope of succeeding Ti- 
berius in the empire. In order more effectually to secure 
this object, upon Junia's dying in child-bed, he engaged 
in a criminal commerce with Ennia Naevia, the wife of 
Marco, at that time prefect of the pretorian cohorts ; 
promising to marry her if he became emperor, to which 
he bound himself, not only by an oath, but by a written 
obligation under his hand. Having by her means insinu- 
ated himself into Marco's favour, some are of opinion 
that he attempted to poison Tiberius, and ordered his 
ring to be taken from him, before the breath was out of 
his body ; and that, because he seemed to hold it fast, he 
caused a pillow to be thrown upon him, 3 squeezing him 
by the throat, at the same time, with his own hand. One 
of his freedmen crying out at this horrid barbarity, he 
was immediately crucified. These circumstances are far 

1 NatriceuSy a water-snake, so called from nato, to swim. The allu- 
sion is probably to Caligula's being reared in the island of Capri. 

2 A Phaeton is said to have set the world on fire. 
8 See the Life of Tiberius, c. lxxiii. 



CALIGULA. 251 

from being improbable, as some authors relate that, after- 
wards, though he did not acknowledge his having a hand 
in the death of Tiberius, yet he frankly declared that he 
had formerly entertained such a design ; and as a proof 
of his affection for his relations, he would frequently boast 
" That, to revenge the death of his mother and brothers, 
he had entered the chamber of Tiberius, when he was 
asleep, with a poniard, but being seized with a fit of com- 
passion, threw it away, and retired ; and that Tiberius, 
though aware of his intention, durst not make any inqui- 
ries, or attempt revenge." 

XIII. Having thus secured the imperial power, he ful- 
filled by his elevation the wish of the Roman people, I 
may venture to say, of all mankind ; for he had long been 
the object of expectation and desire to the greater part 
of the provincials and soldiers, who had known him when 
a child; and to the whole people of Rome, from their 
affection for the memory of Germanicus, his father, and 
compassion for the family almost entirely destroyed. Upon 
his moving from Misenum, therefore, although he was in 
mourning, and following the corpse of Tiberius, he had 
to walk amidst altars, victims, and lighted torches, with 
prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him, 
in transports of joy, and calling him, besides other auspi- 
cious names, by those of "their star," " their chick," " their 
pretty puppet," and " bantling." 

XIV. Immediately on his entering the city, by the joint 
acclamations of the senate, and people, who broke into 
the senate-house, Tiberius's will was set aside, it having 
left his other grandson, 1 then a minor, co-heir with him, 
the whole government and administration of affairs was 
placed in his hands ; so much to the joy and satisfaction 
of the public, that, in less than three months after, above 

1 His name was also Tiberius. See before, Tiberius, c. lxxvi. 



252 SUETONIUS. 

a hundred and sixty thousand victims are said to have 
been offered in sacrifice. Upon his going, a few days 
afterwards, to the nearest islands on the coast of Campa- 
nia, 1 vows were made for his safe return ; every person 
emulously testifying their care and concern for his safety. 
And when he fell ill, the people hung about the Palatium 
all night long; some vowed, in public handbills, to risk 
their lives in the combats of the amphitheatre, and others 
to lay them down, for his recovery. To this extraordinary 
love entertained for him by his countrymen, was added an 
uncommon regard by foreign nations. Even Artabanus, 
king of the Parthians, who had always manifested hatred 
and contempt for Tiberius, solicited his friendship ; came 
to hold a conference with his consular lieutenant, and 
passing the Euphrates, paid the highest honours to the 
eagles, the Roman standards, and the images of the 
Caesars. 2 

XV. Caligula himself inflamed this devotion, by prac- 
tising all the arts of popularity. After he had delivered, 
with floods of tears, a speech in praise of Tiberius, and 
buried him with the utmost pomp, he immediately has- 
tened over to Pandataria and the Pontian islands, 3 to bring 
thence the ashes of his mother and brother ; and, to tes- 
tify the great regard he had for their memory, he per- 
formed the voyage in a very tempestuous season. He 
approached their remains with profound veneration, and 
deposited them in the urns with his own hands. Having 
brought them in grand solemnity to Ostia, 4 with an ensign 

1 Procida, Ischia, Capri, &c. 

2 The eagle was the standard of the legion, each cohort of which had 
its own ensign, with different devices ; and there were also little ima- 
ges of the emperors, to which divine honours were paid. 

3 See Tiberius, cc. liii. liv. 

4 See Tiberius, c. x. ; and note. 



CALIGULA. 253 

flying in the stern of the galley, and thence up the Tiber 
to Rome, they were borne by persons of the first distinc- 
tion in the equestrian order, on two biers, into the mau- 
soleum, 1 at noon-day. He appointed yearly offerings to 
be solemnly and publicly celebrated to their memory, 
besides Circensian games to that of his mother, and a 
chariot with her image to be included in the procession. 2 
The month of September he called Germanicus, in hon- 
our of his father. By a single decree of the senate, he 
heaped upon his grandmother, Antonia, all the honours 
which had been ever conferred on the empress Livia. 
His uncle, Claudius, who till then continued in the eques- 
trian order, he took for his colleague in the consulship. 
He adopted his brother, Tiberius, 3 on the day he took 
upon him the manly habit, and conferred upon him the 
title of " Prince of the Youths." As for his sisters, he 
ordered these words to be added to the oaths of allegi- 
ance to himself: " Nor will I hold myself or my own 
children more dear than I do Caius and his sisters :" 4 and 
commanded all resolutions proposed by the consuls in 
the senate to be prefaced thus : " May what we are going 
to do, prove fortunate and happy to Caius Caesar and his 
sisters." With the like popularity he restored all those 

1 The mausoleum built by Augustus, mentioned before in his Life, 
ch. xcix 

2 The Carpentum was a carriage, commonly with two wheels, and an 
arched covering, but sometimes without a covering ; used chiefly by 
matrons, and named, according to Ovid, from Carmenta, the mother 
of Evander. Women were prohibited the use of it in the second Punic 
war, by the Oppian law, which, however, was soon after repealed. This 
chariot was also used to convey the images of the illustrious women to 
whom divine honours were paid, in solemn processions after their death, 
as in the present instance. It is represented on some of the sestertii. 

3 See cc. xiv. and xxiii. of the present History. 
* lb. cc. vii. and xxiv. 



254 SUETONIUS. 

who had been condemned and banished, and granted an 
act of indemnity against all impeachments and past of- 
fences. To relieve the informers and witnesses against 
his mother and brothers from all apprehension, he brought 
the records of their trials into the forum, and there burnt 
them, calling loudly on the gods to witness that he had 
not read or handled them. A memorial which was offered 
him relative to his own security, he would not receive, 
declaring, " that he had done nothing to make any one 
his enemy :" and said, at the same time, " he had no ears 
for informers." 

XVI. The Spintriae he banished from the city, being 
prevailed upon not to throw them into the sea, as he had 
intended. The writings of Titus Lubienus, Cordus Cre- 
mutius, and Cassius Severus, which had been suppressed 
by an act of the senate, he permitted to be drawn from 
obscurity, and universally read ; observing, " that it would 
be for his own advantage to have the transactions of 
former times delivered to posterity." He published ac- 
counts of the proceedings of the government — a prac- 
tice which had been introduced by Augustus, but discon- 
tinued by Tiberius. 1 He granted the magistrates a full 
and free jurisdiction, without any appeal to himself. He 
made a very strict and exact review of the Roman knights, 
but conducted it with moderation ; publicly depriving of 
his horse every knight who lay under the stigma of any 
thing base and dishonourable ; but passing over the names 
of those knights who were only guilty of venial faults, in 
calling over the list of the order. To lighten the labours 
of the judges, he added a fifth class to the former four. 
He attempted likewise to restore to the people their an- 
cient right of voting in the choice of magistrates. 2 He 

1 See the Life of Augustus, cc. xxviii. and xcix. 

2 Julius Caesar had shared it with them (c. xli.). Augustus had only 



CALIGULA. 255 

paid very honourably, and without any dispute, the lega- 
cies left by Tiberius in his will, though it had been set 
aside ; as likewise those left by the will of Livia Augusta, 
which Tiberius had annulled. He remitted the hundredth 
penny, due to the government in all auctions throughout 
Italy. He made up to many their losses sustained by fire; 
and when he restored their kingdoms to any princes, he 
likewise allowed them all the arrears of the taxes and 
revenues which had accrued in the interval ; as in the case 
of Antiochus of Comagene, where the confiscation would 
have amounted to a hundred millions of sesterces. To 
prove to the world that he was ready to encourage good 
examples of every kind, he gave to a freed-woman eighty 
thousand sesterces, for not discovering a crime committed 
by her patron, though she had been put to exquisite tor- 
ture for that purpose. For all these acts of beneficence, 
amongst other honours, a golden shield was decreed to 
him, which the colleges of priests were to carry annually, 
upon a fixed day, into the Capitol, with the senate attend- 
ing, and the youth of the nobility, of both sexes, celebrat- 
ing the praise of his virtues in songs. It was likewise 
ordained, that the day on which he succeeded to the em- 
pire should be called Palilia, in token of the city's being 
at that time, as it were, new founded. 1 

XVII. He held the consulship four times : the first, 2 
from the calends [the first] of July for two months ; the 
second, 3 from the calends of January for thirty days ; the 
third, 4 until the ides [the 1 3th] of January ; and the fourth, 5 

kept up the form (c. xl.). Tiberius deprived the Roman people of the 
last remains of the freedom of suffrage. 

1 The city of Rome was founded on the twenty-first day of April, 
which was called Palilia, from Pales, the goddess of shepherds, and ever 
afterwards kept as a festival. 

2 A. U. C 790. 3 A. U. C. 791. * A. U. C 793. 5 A. U. C. 794. 



256 SUETONIUS. 

until the seventh of the same ides [7th January]. Of these, 
the two last he held successively. The third he assumed 
by his sole authority at Lyons ; not, as some are of opin- 
ion, from arrogance or neglect of rules ; but because, at 
that distance, it was impossible for him to know that his 
colleague had died a little before the beginning of the 
new year. He twice distributed to the people a bounty 
of three hundred sesterces a man, and as often gave a 
splendid feast to the senate and the equestrian order, 
with their wives and children. In the latter, he presented 
to the men forensic garments, and to the women and chil- 
dren purple scarfs. To make a perpetual addition to the 
public joy for ever, he added to the Saturnalia^ one day, 
which he called Juvenalis [the juvenile feast]. 

XVIII. He exhibited some combats of gladiators, either 
in the amphitheatre of Taurus, 2 or in the Septa, with which 
he intermingled troops of the best pugilists from Campa- 
nia and Africa. He did not always preside in person 
on those occasions, but sometimes gave a commission to 
magistrates or friends to supply his place. He frequently 
entertained the people with stage-plays of various kinds, 
and in several parts of the city, and sometimes by night, 
when he caused the whole city to be lighted. He like- 
wise gave various things to be scrambled for among the 
people, and distributed to every man a basket of bread 

1 The Saturnalia, held in honour of Saturn, was, amongst the Ro- 
mans, the most celebrated festival of the whole year, and held in the 
month of December. All orders of the people then devoted themselves 
to mirth and feasting ; friends sent presents to one another ; and mas- 
ters treated their slaves upon a footing of equality. At first it was held 
only for one day, afterwards for three days, and was now prolonged by 
Caligula's orders. 

2 See Augustus, cc. xxix. and xliii. The amphitheatre of Statilius 
Taurus is supposed to have stood in the Campus Martius, and the ele- 
vation now called the Monte Citorio, to have been formed by its ruins. 



CALIGULA. 257 

with other victuals. Upon this occasion, he sent his own 
share to a Roman knight, who was seated opposite to 
him, and was enjoying himself by eating heartily. To a 
senator, who was doing the same, he sent an appointment 
of praetor-extraordinary. He likewise exhibited a great 
number of Circensian games from morning until night ; 
intermixed with the hunting of wild beasts from Africa, 
or the Trojan exhibition. Some of these games were 
celebrated with peculiar circumstances ; the Circus being 
overspread with vermilion and chrysolite ; and none drove 
in the chariot races who were not of the senatorian order. 
For some of these he suddenly gave the signal, when, 
upon his viewing from the Gelotiana 1 the preparations 
in the Circus, he was asked to do so by a few persons 
in the neighbouring galleries. 

XIX. He invented besides a new kind of spectacle, 
such as had never been heard of before. For he made a 
bridge, of about three miles and a half in length, from 
Baiae to the mole of Puteoli, 2 collecting trading vessels 
from all quarters, mooring them in two rows by their 
anchors, and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct, 
after the fashion of the Appian way. 3 This bridge he 
crossed and recrossed for two days together; the first 
day mounted on a horse richly caparisoned, wearing on 
his head a crown of oak leaves, armed with a battle-axe, 
a Spanish buckler and a sword, and in a cloak made of 
cloth of gold ; the day following, in the habit of a char- 

1 Supposed to be a house, so called, adjoining the Circus, in which 
some of the emperor's attendants resided. 

a Now Puzzuoli, on the shore of the bay of Naples. Every one knows 
what wealth was lavished here and at Baiae, on public works and the 
marine villas of the luxurious Romans, in the times of the emperors. 

3 The original terminus of the Appian way was at Brundusium. This 
mole formed what we should call a nearer station to Rome, on the same 
road, the ruins of which are still to be seen. St. Paul landed there. 
i7 



?5§ SUETONIUS. 

ioteer, standing in a chariot, drawn by two high-bred 
horses, having with him a young boy, Darius by name, 
one of the Parthian hostages, with a cohort of the pre- 
torian guards attending him, and a party of his friends in 
cars of Gaulish make. 1 Most people, I know, are of 
opinion, that this bridge was designed by Caius, in imita- 
tion of Xerxes, who, to the astonishment of the world, 
laid a bridge over the Hellespont, which is somewhat nar- 
rower than the distance betwixt Baiae and Puteoli. Others, 
however, thought that he did it to strike terror in Ger- 
many and Britain, which he was upon the point of invad- 
ing, by the fame of some prodigious work. But for my- 
self, when I was a boy, I heard my grandfather say, 2 that 
the reason assigned by some courtiers who were in habits 
of the greatest intimacy with him, was this ; when Tibe- 
rius was in some anxiety about the nomination of a suc- 
cessor, and rather inclined to pitch upon his grandson, 
'Thrasyllus the astrologer had assured him, " That Caius 
would no more be emperor, than he would ride on horse- 
back across the gulf of Baiae." 

XX. He likewise exhibited public diversions in Sicily, 
Grecian games at Syracuse, and Attic plays at Lyons in 
Gaul : besides a contest for pre-eminence in the Grecian 

1 Essedis : they were light cars, on two wheels, constructed to carry 
only one person ; invented, it is supposed, by the Belgians, and by them 
introduced into Britain, where they were used in war. The Romans, 
after their expeditions in Gaul and Britain, adopted this useful vehicle 
instead of their more cumbrous rheda, not only for journies where dis- 
patch was required, but in solemn processions, and for ordinary purposes. 
They seem to have become the fashion, for Ovid tells us that these little 
carriages were driven by young ladies, themselves holding the reins, 
Amor. xi. 16. 49. 

■ Suetonius flourished about seventy years after this, in the reign of 
Adrian, and derived many of the anecdotes which give interest to his 
history from cotemporary persons. See Claudius, c. xv. &c. 



CALIGULA. 259 

and Roman eloquence ; in which we are told that such as 
were baffled bestowed rewards upon the best performers, 
and were obliged to compose speeches in their praise : 
but that those who performed the worst were forced to 
blot out what they had written with a sponge or their 
tongue, unless they preferred to be beaten with a rod, 
or plunged over head and ears into the nearest river. 

XXI. He completed the works which were left unfin- 
ished by Tiberius, namely, the temple of Augustus, and 
the theatre of Pompey. 1 He began, likewise, the aque- 
duct from the neighbourhood of Tibur, 2 and an amphithe- 
atre near the Septa ; 3 of which works, one was completed 

1 See Tiberius, c. xlvii. and Augustus, c. xxxi. 

8 This aqueduct, commenced by Caligula and completed by Claudian, 
a truly imperial work, conveyed the waters of two streams to Rome, fol- 
lowing the valley of the Anio from above Tivoli. The course of one 
of these rivulets was forty miles, and it was carried on arches, immedi- 
ately after quitting its source, for a distance of three miles. The other, 
the Anio Novus, also began on arches, which continued for upwards of 
twelve miles. After this, both were conveyed under ground ; but at 
the distance of six miles from the city, they were united, and carried 
upon arches all the rest of the way. This is the most perfect of all the 
ancient aqueducts; and it has been repaired, so as to convey the Acqua 
Felice, one of the three streams which now supply Rome. See Clau- 
dius, c. xx. 

3 By Septa, Suetonius here means the huts or barracks of the pretorian 
camp, which was a permanent and fortified station. It stood to the east 
of the Viminal and Quirinal hills, between the present Porta Pia and 
S. Lorenzo, where there is a quadrangular projection in the city walls 
marking the site. The remains of the Amphitheatrum Castrense stand 
between the Porta Maggiore and S. Giovanni, formerly without the an- 
cient walls, but now included in the line. It is all of brick, even the 
Corinthian pillars, and seems to have been but a rude structure, suited 
to the purpose for which it was built, the amusement of the soldiers, and 
gymnastic exercises. For this purpose they were used to construct tern- 
porary amphitheatres near the stations in the distant provinces, which 
were not built of stone or brick, but hollow circular spots dug in the 



2 6o SUETONIUS. 

by his successor Claudius, and the other remained as he 
left it. The walls of Syracuse, which had fallen to decay 
by length of time, he repaired, as he likewise did the tem- 
ples of the gods. He formed plans far rebuilding the 
palace of Polycrates at Samos, finishing the temple of the 
Didymsean Apollo at Miletus, and building a town on a 
ridge of the Alps ; but, above all, for cutting through the 
isthmus in Achaia 1 and even sent a centurion of the first 
rank to measure out the work. 

XXII. Thus far we have spoken of him as a prince. 
What remains to be said of him, bespeaks him rather a 
monster than a man. He assumed a variety of titles, 
such as " Dutiful," " The Pious," " Child of the Camp, the 
Father of the Armies," and "The Greatest and Best 
Caesar." Upon hearing some kings, who came to the 
city to pay him court, conversing together at supper, 
about their illustrious descent, he exclaimed, 

Let there be but one prince, one king. 

He was strongly inclined to assume the diadem, and 
change the form of government, from imperial to regal ; 
but being told that he far exceeded the grandeur of kings 
and princes, he began to arrogate to himself a divine 
majesty. He ordered all the images of the gods, which 
were famous either for their beauty, or the veneration 
paid them, among which was that of Jupiter Olympius, 
to be brought from Greece, that he might take the heads 
off, and put on his own. Having continued part of the 

ground, round which the spectators sat on the declivity, on ranges of 
seats cut in the sod. Many vestiges of this kind have been traced in 
Britain. 

1 The Isthmus of Corinth ; an enterprize which had formerly been 
attempted by Demetrius, and which was also projected by Julius Caesar, 
c. xliv., and Nero, c. xix. ; but they all failed of accomplishing it. 



CALIGULA. 261 

Palatium as far as the Forum, and the temple of Castor 
and Pollux being converted into a kind of vestibule to his 
house, he often stationed himself between the twin bro- 
thers, and so presented himself to be worshipped by all 
votaries ; some of whom saluted him by the name of 
yupiter Latialis. He also instituted a temple and priests, 
with choicest victims, in honour of his own divinity. In 
his temple stood a statue of gold, the exact image of him- 
self, which was daily dressed in garments corresponding 
with those he wore himself. The most opulent persons 
in the city offered themselves as candidates for the hon- 
our of being his priests, and purchased it successively at 
an immense price. The victims were flamingos, peacocks, 
bustards, guinea-fowls, turkey and pheasant hens, each 
sacrificed on their respective days. On nights when the 
moon was full, he was in the constant habit of inviting her 
to his embraces and his bed. In the day-time he talked 
in private to Jupiter Capitolinus ; one while whispering to 
him, and another turning his ear to him ; sometimes he 
spoke aloud, and in railing language. For he was over- 
heard to threaten the god thus : 

"H ifi avdetp'j 7] lyd) as j l 
Raise thou me up, or I'll — 

until being at last prevailed upon by the entreaties of the 
god, as he said, to take up his abode with him, he built a 
bridge over the temple of the Deified Augustus, by which 
he joined the Palatium to the Capitol. Afterwards, that 
he might be still nearer, he laid the foundations of a new 
palace in the very court of the Capitol. 

1 On the authority of Dio Cassius and the Salmatian manuscript, this 
verse from Homer is substituted for the common reading, which is, 

'Ete yauav Aavaa» -tpaot oe, 
Into the land of Greece I will transport thee. 



262 SUETONIUS. 

XXIII. He was unwilling to be thought or called the 
grandson of Agrippa, because of the obscurity of his 
birth ; and he was offended if any one, either in prose or 
verse, ranked him amongst the Caesars. He said that his 
mother was the fruit of an incestuous commerce, main- 
tained by Augustus with his daughter Julia. And not 
content with this vile reflection upon the memory of Au- 
gustus, he forbad his victories at Actium, and on the coast 
of Sicily, to be celebrated, as usual ; affirming that they 
had been most pernicious and fatal to the Roman people. 
He called his grandmother Livia Augusta " Ulysses in a 
woman's dress," and had the indecency to reflect upon 
her in a letter to the senate, as of mean birth, and de- 
scended, by the mother's side, from a grandfather who 
was only one of the municipal magistrates of Fondi ; 
whereas it is certain, from the public records, that Aufi- 
dius Lurco held high offices at Rome. His grandmother 
Antonia desiring a private conference with him, he refused 
to grant it, unless Macro, the prefect of the pretorian 
guards, were present. Indignities of this kind, and ill 
usage, were the cause of her death ; but some think he 
also gave her poison. Nor did he pay the smallest re- 
spect to her memory after her death, but witnessed the 
burning from his private apartment. His brother Tibe- 
rius, who had no expectation of any violence, was sud- 
denly dispatched by a military tribune sent by his order 
for that purpose. He forced Silanus, his father-in-law, to 
kill himself, by cutting his throat with a razor. The pre- 
text he alleged for these murders was, that the latter had 
not followed him upon his putting to sea in stormy wea- 
ther, but stayed behind with the view of seizing the city, 
if he should perish.^ The other, he said, smelt of an anti- 
dote, which he had taken to prevent his being poisoned 
by him ; whereas Silanus was only afraid of being sea- 



CALIGULA. 263 

sick, and the disagreeableness of the voyage ; and Tibe- 
rius had merely taken a medicine for an habitual cough, 
which was continually growing worse. As for his suc- 
cessor Claudius, he only saved him as a laughing-stock. 

XXIV. He lived in the habit of incest with all his sis- 
ters ; and at table, when much company was present, he 
placed each of them in turns below him, whilst - his wife 
reclined above him. It is believed, that he deflowered 
one of them, Drusilla, before he had assumed the robe of 
manhood ; and was even caught in her embraces by his 
grandmother Antonia, with whom they were educated to- 
gether. When she was afterwards married to Cassius 
Longinus, a man of consular rank, he took her from him, 
and kept her constantly as if she were his lawful wife. 
In a fit of sickness, he by his will appointed her heiress 
both of his estate and the empire. After her death, he 
ordered a public mourning for her; during which it was 
capital for any person to laugh, use the bath, or sup with 
his parents, wife, or children. Being inconsolable under 
his affliction, he went hastily, and in the night-time, from 
the City ; going through Campania to Syracuse, and then 
suddenly returned without shaving his beard, or trimming 
his hair. Nor did he ever afterwards, in matters of the 
greatest importance, not even in the assemblies of the 
people or before the soldiers, swear any otherwise, than 
"By the divinity of Drusilla." The rest of his sisters he 
did not treat with so much fondness or regard ; but fre- 
quently prostituted them to his catamites. He therefore 
the more readily condemned them in the case of y^Emilius 
Lepidus, as guilty of adultery, and privy to that conspir- 
acy against him. Nor did he only divulge their own hand- 
writing relative to the affair, which he procured by base 
and lewd means, but likewise consecrated to Mars the 
Avenger three swords which had been prepared to stab 



264 SUETONIUS. 

him, with an inscription, setting forth the occasion of their 
consecration. 

XXV. Whether in the marriage of his wives, in repu- 
diating them, or retaining them, he acted with greater in- 
famy, it is difficult to say. Being at the wedding of Caius 
with Livia Orestilla, he ordered the bride to be carried to 
his own • house, but within a few days divorced her, and 
two years after banished her; because it was thought, 
that upon her divorce she returned to the embraces of 
her former husband. Some say, that being invited to the 
wedding-supper, he sent a message to Piso, who sat op- 
posite to him, in these words: "Do not be too fond with 
my wife," and that he immediately carried her off. Next 
day he published a proclamation, importing, "That he had 
got a wife as Romulus and Augustus had done." 1 Lollia 
Paulina, who was married to a man of consular rank in 
command of an army, he suddenly called from the pro- 
vince where she was with her husband, upon mention 
being made that her grandmother was formerly very 
beautiful, and married her ; but he soon afterwards parted 
with her, interdicting her from having ever afterwards 
any commerce with man. He loved with a most pas- 
sionate and constant affection Caesonia, who was neither 
handsome nor young, and was besides the mother of 
three daughters by another man ; but a wanton of un- 
bounded lasciviousness. Her he would frequently ex- 
hibit to the soldiers, dressed in a military cloak, with 
shield and helmet, and riding by his side. To his friends 
he even showed her naked. After she had a child, he 
honoured her with the title of wife ; in one and the same 
day, declaring himself her husband, and father of the 

1 Alluding, in the case of Romulus, to the rape of the Sabines ; and 
in that of Augustus to his having taken Livia from her husband. — Au- 
gustus, c. lx. 



CALIGULA. 265 

child of which she was delivered. He named it Julia 
Drusilla, and carrying it round the temples of all the 
goddesses, laid it on the lap of Minerva; to whom he 
recommended the care of bringing up and instructing her. 
He considered her as his own child for no better reason 
than her savage temper, which was such even in infancy, 
that she would attack with her nails the face and eyes of 
the children at play with her. 

XXVI. It would be of little importance, as well as dis- 
gusting, to add to all this an account of the manner in 
which he treated his relations and friends; as Ptolemy, 
king Juba's son, his cousin (for he was the grandson of 
Mark Antony by his daughter Selene), 1 and especially 
Macro himself, and Ennia likewise, 2 by whose assistance 
he had obtained the empire ; all of whom, for their alli- 
ance and eminent services, he rewarded with violent 
deaths. Nor was he more mild or respectful in his be- 
haviour towards the senate. Some who had borne the 
highest offices in the government, he suffered to run by 
his litter in their togas for several miles together, and to 
attend him at supper, sometimes at the head of his couch, 
sometimes at his feet, with napkins. Others of them, after 
he had privately put them to death, he nevertheless con- 
tinued to send for, as if they were still alive, and after a 
few days pretended that they had laid violent hands upon 
themselves. The consuls having forgotten to give public 
notice of his birth-day, he displaced them ; and the re- 
public was three days without any one in that high office. 
A quaestor who was said to be concerned in a conspiracy 
against him, he scourged severely, having first stripped 
off his clothes, and spread them under the feet of the sol- 
diers employed in the work, that they might stand the 

1 Selene was the daughter of Mark Antony by Cleopatra. 

2 See c. xii. 



266 SUETONIUS. 

more firm. The other orders likewise he treated with 
the same insolence and violence. Being disturbed by the 
noise of people taking their places at midnight in the 
circus, as they were to have free admission, he drove 
them all away with clubs. In this tumult, above twenty 
Roman knights were squeezed to death, with as many 
matrons, with a great crowd besides. When stage-plays 
were acted, to occasion disputes between the people and 
the knights, he distributed the money-tickets sooner than 
usual, that the seats assigned to the knights might be all 
occupied by the mob. In the spectacles of gladiators, 
sometimes, when the sun was violently hot, he would 
order the curtains, which covered the amphitheatre, to be 
drawn aside, 1 and forbad any person to be let out ; with- 
drawing at the same time the usual apparatus for the 
entertainment, and presenting wild beasts almost pined 
to death, the most sorry gladiators, decrepit with age, and 
fit only to work the machinery, and decent house-keepers, 
who were remarkable for some bodily infirmity. Some- 
times shutting up the public granaries, he would oblige 
the people to starve for a while. 

XXVII. He evinced the savage barbarity of his tem- 
per chiefly by the following indications. When flesh was 
only to be had at a high price for feeding his wild beasts 
reserved for the spectacles, he ordered that criminals 
should be given them to be devoured ; and upon inspect- 
ing them in a row, while he stood in the middle of the 
portico, without troubling himself to examine their cases 
he ordered them to be dragged away, from " bald-pate to 
bald-pate." 2 Of one person who had made a vow for his 

1 The vast area of the Roman amphitheatres had no roof, but the 
audience were protected against the sun and bad weather by temporary 
hangings stretched over it. 

2 A proverbial expression, meaning, without distinction. 



CALIGULA. 267 

recovery to combat with a gladiator, he exacted its per- 
formance ; nor would he allow him to desist until he 
came off conqueror, and after many entreaties. Another, 
who had vowed to give his life for the same cause, having 
shrunk from the sacrifice, he delivered, adorned as a vic- 
tim, with garlands and fillets, to boys, who were to drive 
him through the streets, calling on him to fulfil his vow, 
until he was thrown headlong from the ramparts. After 
disfiguring many persons of honorable rank, by branding 
them in the face with hot irons, he condemned them to 
the mines, to work in repairing the highways, or to fight 
with wild beasts ; or tying them by the neck and heels, in 
the manner of beasts carried to slaughter, would shut 
them up in cages or saw them asunder. Nor were these 
severities merely inflicted for crimes of great enormity, 
but for making remarks on his public games, or for not 
having sworn by the Genius of the emperor. He com- 
pelled parents to be present at the execution of their 
sons ; and to one who excused himself on account of 
indisposition he sent his own litter. Another he in- 
vited to his table immediately after he had witnessed 
the spectacle, and coolly challenged him to jest and be 
merry. He ordered the overseer of the spectacles and 
wild beasts to be scourged in fetters, during several days 
successively, in his own presence and did not put him to 
death until he was disgusted with the stench of his putre- 
fied brain. He burned alive, in the centre of the arena 
of the amphitheatre, the writer of a farce, for some witty 
verse, which had a double meaning. A Roman knight, 
who had been exposed to the wild beasts, crying out that 
he was innocent, he called him back, and having had his 
tongue cut out, remanded him to the arena. 

XXVIII. Asking a certain person, whom he recalled 
after a long exile, how he used to spend his time, he re- 



268 SUETONIUS. 

plied, with flattery, " I was always praying the gods for 
what has happened, that Tiberius might die and you be 
emperor." Concluding, therefore, that those he had him- 
self banished also prayed for his death, he sent orders 
round the islands 1 to have them put to death. Being 
very desirous to have a senator torn to pieces, he em- 
ployed some persons to call him a public enemy, fall upon 
him as he entered the senate-house, stab him with their 
styles, and deliver him to the rest to tear asunder. Nor 
was he satisfied until he saw the limbs and bowels of the 
man, after they had been dragged through the streets, 
piled up in a heap before him. 

XXIX. He aggravated his barbarous actions by lan- 
guage equally outrageous. " There is nothing . in my 
nature," said he, * that I commend or approve so much 
as my adtarp^ia (inflexible rigour)." Upon his grand- 
mother Antonia's giving him some advice, as if it was a 
small matter to pay no regard to it, he said to her, " Re- 
member that all things are lawful for me." When about 
to murder his brother, whom he suspected of taking anti- 
dotes against poison, he said, " See then an andidote 
against Caesar ! " And when he banished his sisters, he 
told them in a menacing tone, that he had not only islands 
at command, but also swords. One of pretorian rank 
having sent several times from Anticyra, 2 whither he had 
gone for his health, to have his leave of absence pro- 
longed, he ordered him to be put to death ; adding these 
words : " Bleeding is necessary for one that has taken 

1 The islands off the coast of Italy, in the Tuscan sea and in the Ar- 
chipelago, were the usual places of banishment. See before, c. xv. ; 
and in Tiberius, c. liv., &c. 

2 Anticyra, an island in the Archipelago, was famous for the growth 
of hellebore. This .plant being considered a remedy for insanity, the 
proverb arose — Navigia in Anticyram y as much as to say, ' ' You are 
mad." 



CALIGULA. 269 

hellebore so long and found no benefit." It was his cus- 
torn every tenth day to sign the lists of prisoners ap- 
pointed for execution ; and this he called " clearing his 
accounts." And having condemned several Gauls and 
Greeks at one time, he exclaimed in triumph, " I have 
conquered Gallograecia." * 

XXX. He generally prolonged the sufferings of his 
victims by causing them to be inflicted by slight and fre- 
quently repeated strokes ; this being his well-known and 
constant order: "Strike so that he may feel himself die." 
Having punished one person for another, by mistaking 
his name, he said " he deserved it quite as much." He 
had frequently in his mouth these words of the tragedian : 

Oderint dura metuant. 2 

I scorn their hatred, if they do but fear me. 

He would often inveigh against all the senators without 
exception, as clients of Sejanus, and informers against his 
mother and brothers, producing the memorials which he 
had pretended to burn, and excusing the cruelty of Tibe- 
rius as necessary, since it was impossible to question the 
veracity of such a number of accusers. 3 He continually 
reproached the whole equestrian order, as devoting them- 
selves to nothing but acting on the stage, and fighting as 
gladiators. Being incensed at the people's applauding a 
party at the Circensian games in opposition to him, he 
exclaimed, " I wish the Roman people had but one neck." 4 
When Tetrinius, the highwayman, was denounced, he said 

1 Meaning the province in Asia, called Galatia, from the Gauls who 
conquered it, and occupied it jointly with the Greek colonists. 

* A quotation from the tragedy of Atreus, by L. Attius, mentioned 
by Cicero. Off. i. 28. 

8 See before, Augustus, c. lxxi. 

* These celebrated words are generally attributed to Nero ; but Dio 
and Seneca agree with Suetonius in ascribing them to Caligula. 



270 SUETONIUS. 

his persecutors too were all Tetrinius's. Five Retiarii, 1 
in tunics, fighting in a company, yielded without a strug- 
gle to the same number of opponents ; and being ordered 
to be slain, one of them taking up his lance again, killed 
all the conquerors. This he lamented in a proclamation 
as a most cruel butchery, and cursed all those who had 
borne the sight of it. 

XXXI. He used to complain aloud of the state of the 
times, because it was not rendered remarkable by any 
public calamities ; for, while the reign of Augustus had 
been made memorable to posterity by the disaster of 
Varus, 2 and that of Tiberius by the fall of the theatre at 
Fidenae, 3 his was likely to pass into oblivion, from an un- 
interrupted series of prosperity. And, at times, he wished 
for some terrible slaughter of his troops, a famine, a pes- 
tilence, conflagrations, or an earthquake. 

XXXII. Even in the midst of his diversions, while gam- 
ing or feasting, this savage ferocity, both in his language 
and actions, never forsook him. Persons were often put 
to the torture in his presence, whilst he was dining or 
carousing. A soldier, who was an adept in the art of 
beheading, used at such times to take off the heads of 
prisoners, who were brought in for that purpose. At 

1 Gladiators were distinguished by their armour and manner of fight- 
ing. Some were called Secutores, whose arms were a helmet, a shield, 
a sword, or a leaden ball. Others, the usual antagonists of the former, 
were named Retiarii. A combatant of this class was dressed in a short 
tunic, but wore nothing on his head. He carried in his left hand a 
three-pointed lance, called Tridens or Fuscina, and in his right, a net, 
with which he attempted to entangle his adversary, by casting it over 
his head, and suddenly drawing it together ; when with his trident he 
usually slew him. But if he missed his aim, by throwing the net either 
too short or too far, he instantly betook himself to flight, and endea- 
voured to prepare his net for a second cast. His antagonist, in the 
mean time, pursued, to prevent his design, by dispatching him. 

2 Augustus, c. xxiii. s Tiberius, c. xl. 



CALIGULA. 271 

Puteoli, at the dedication of the bridge which he planned, 
as already mentioned, 1 he invited a number of people to 
come to him from the shore, and then suddenly threw 
them headlong into the sea ; thrusting down with poles 
and oars those who, to save themselves, had got hold of 
the rudders of the ships. At Rome, in a public feast, a 
slave having stolen some thin plates of silver with which 
the couches were inlaid, he delivered him immediately to 
an executioner, with orders to cut off his hands, and lead 
him round the guests, with them hanging from his neck 
before his breast, and a label, signifying the cause of his 
punishment. A gladiator, who was practising with him, 
and voluntarily threw himself at his feet, he stabbed with 
a poniard, and then ran about with a palm branch in his 
hand, after the manner of those who are victorious in the 
games. When a victim was to be offered upon an altar, 
he, clad in the habit of the Popae, 2 and holding the axe 
aloft for a while, at last, instead of the animal, slaugh- 
tered an officer who attended to cut up the sacrifice. 
And at a sumptuous entertainment, he fell suddenly into 
a violent fit of laughter, and upon the consuls, who re- 
clined next to him, respectfully asking him the occasion, 
" Nothing," replied he, " but that, upon a single nod of 
mine, you might both have your throats cut." 

XXXIII. Among many other jests, this was one : As 
he stood by the statue of Jupiter, he asked Apelles, the 
tragedian, which of them he thought was biggest ? Upon 

1 See before, c. xix. 

2 Popce were persons who, at public sacrifices, led the victim to the 
altar. They had their clothes tucked up, and were naked to the waist. 
The victim was led with a slack rope, that it might not seem to be 
brought by force, which was reckoned a bad omen. For the same 
reason, it was allowed to stand loose before the altar, and it was thought 
a very unfavourable sign if it got away. 



272 SUETONIUS. 

his demurring about it, he lashed him most severely, now 
and then commending his voice whilst he entreated for 
mercy, as being well modulated even when he was vent- 
ing his grief. As often as he kissed the neck of his wife 
or mistress, he would say, " So beautiful a throat must be 
cut whenever I please ; " and now and then he would 
threaten to put his dear Caesonia to the torture, that he 
might discover why he loved her so passionately. 

XXXIV. In his behaviour towards men of almost all 
ages, he discovered a degree of jealousy and malignity 
equal to that of his cruelty and pride. He so demolished 
and dispersed the statues of several illustrious persons, 
which had been removed by Augustus, for want of room, 
from the court of the Capitol into the Campus Martius, 
that it was impossible to set them up again with their in- 
scriptions entire. And for the future, he forbad any sta- 
tue whatever to be erected without his knowledge and 
leave. He had thoughts, too, of suppressing Homer's 
poems : " For why," said he, " may not I do what Plato 
has done before me, who excluded him from his common- 
wealth ? " * He was likewise very near banishing the 
writings and the busts of Virgil and Livy from all libra- 
ries ; censuring one of them as a man of no genius and 
very little learning ; " and the other as " a verbose and 
careless historian. He often talked of the lawyers, as if 
he intended to abolish their profession. " By Hercules ! " 
he would say, " I shall put it out of their power to answer 
any questions in law, otherwise than by referring to 
me!" 

XXXV. He took from the noblest persons in the city 
the ancient marks of distinction used by their families ; as 
the collar from Torquatus ; 2 from Cincinnatus the curl of 

1 Plato de Repub. xi. ; and Cicero and Tull. xlviii. 

a The collar of gold taken from the gigantic Gaul who was killed in 



CALIGULA. 273 

hair; 1 and from Cneius Pompey the surname of the 
Great, belonging to that ancient family. Ptolemy, men- 
tioned before, whom he invited from his kingdom, and 
received with great honours, he suddenly put to death, for 
no other reason, but because he observed that upon en- 
tering the theatre, at a public exhibition, he attracted the 
eyes of all the spectators by the splendour of his purple 
robe. As often as he met with handsome men, who had 
fine heads of hair, he would order the back of their heads 
to be shaved, to make them appear ridiculous. There 
was one Esius Proculus, the son of a centurion of the 
first rank, who, for his great stature and fine proportions, 
was called the Colossal. Him he ordered to be dragged 
from his seat in the arena, and matched with a gladiator 
in light armour, and afterwards with another completely 
armed ; and upon his worsting them both, commanded 
him forthwith to be bound, to be led clothed in rags up 
and down the streets of the city, and, after being exhi- 
bited in that plight to the women, to be then butchered. 
There was no man of so abject or mean condition whose 
excellency in any kind he did not envy. The Rex Nemo- 
rensis 2 having many years enjoyed the honour of the 

single combat by Titus Manlius, called afterwards Torquatus, was worn 
by the lineal male descendants of the Manlian family. But that illus- 
trious race becoming extinct, the badge of honour, as well as the cog- 
nomen of Torquatus, was revived by Augustus, in the person of Caius 
Nonius Asprenas, who perhaps claimed descent by the female line from 
the family of Manlius. 

1 Cincinnatus signifies one who has curled or crisped hair, from 
which Livy informs us that Lucius Quintus derived his cognomen. 
But of what badge of distinction Caligula deprived the family of the 
Cincinnati, unless the natural feature was hereditary, and he had them 
all shaved — a practice we find mentioned just below — history does not 
inform us, nor are we able to conjecture. 

2 The priest of Diana Nemorensis obtained and held his office by his 
prowess in arms, having to slay his competitors, and offer human sacri- 

18 



274 SUETONIUS. 

priesthood, he procured a still stronger antagonist to op- 
pose him. One Porius, who fought in a chariot, 1 having 
been victorious in an exhibition, and in his joy given free- 
dom to a slave, was applauded so vehemently that Calig- 
ula rose in such haste from his seat that, treading upon 
the hem of his toga, he tumbled down the steps, full of 
indignation, and crying out, " A people who are masters 
of the world, pay greater respect to a gladiator for a 
trifle, than to princes admitted amongst the gods, or to 
my own majesty here present amongst them." 

XXXVI. He never had the least regard either to the 
chastity of his own person, or that of others * * 

Besides his incest with his sisters, and his notorious pas- 
sion for Pyrallis, the prostitute, there was hardly any lady 
of distinction with whom he did not make free. He used 
commonly to invite them with their husbands to supper, 
and as they passed by the couch on which he reclined at 
table, examine them very closely, like those who traffic in 
slaves ; and if any one from modesty held down her face, 
he raised it up with his hand. Afterwards, as often as he 
was in the humour, he would quit the room, send for her 
he liked best, and in a short time return with marks of 

fices, and was called Rex from his reigning paramount in the adjacent 
forest. The temple of this goddess of the chase stood among the deep 
woods which clothe the declivities of the Alban Mount, at a short dis- 
tance from Rome — nemus signifying a grove. Julius Caesar had a resi- 
dence there. See his Life, c. lxxi. The venerable woods are still 
standing, and among them chestnut-trees, which, from their enormous 
girth and vast apparent age, we may suppose to have survived from the 
era of the Caesars. The melancholy and sequestered lake of Nemi, 
deep set in a hollow of the surrounding woods, with the village on its 
brink, still preserves the name of Nemi. 

*An Essedarian was one who fought from an Esseda, the light car- 
riage described in a former note, p. 258. 



CALIGULA. 275 

recent disorder about them. He would then commend 
or disparage her in the presence of the company, recount- 
ing the charms or defects of her person and behaviour in 
private. To some he sent a divorce in the name of their 
absent husbands, and ordered it to be registered in the 
public acts. 

XXXVII. In the devices of his profuse expenditure, he 
surpassed all the prodigals that ever lived ; inventing a 
new kind of bath, with strange dishes and suppers, wash- 
ing in precious unguents, both warm and cold, drinking 
pearls of immense value dissolved in vinegar, and serving 
up for his guests loaves and other victuals modelled in 
gold ; often saying, " that a man ought either to be a good 
economist or an emperor." Besides, he scattered money 
to a prodigious amount among the people, from the top 
of the Julian Basilica, 1 during several days successively. 
He built two ships with ten banks of oars, after the Libur- 
nian fashion, the poops of which blazed with jewels, and 
the sails were of various parti-colours. They were fitted 
up with ample baths, galleries, and saloons, and supplied 
with a great variety of vines and other fruit-trees. In 
these he would sail in the day-time along the coast of 
Campania, feasting amidst dancing and concerts of music. 
In building his palaces and villas, there was nothing he 
desired to effect so much, in defiance of all reason, as 
what was considered impossible. Accordingly, moles were 
formed in the deep and adverse sea, 2 rocks of the hardest 
stone cut away, plains raised to the height of mountains 
with a vast mass of earth, and the tops of mountains lev- 
elled by digging ; and all these were to be executed with 
incredible speed, for the least remissness was a capital 

1 See before, Julius, c. x., and note. 

2 Particularly at Bai;e, see before, c. xix. The practice of encroach- 
ing on the sea on this coast, commenced before, — 

Jactis in altum molibus. — Hor. Ode, b. iii. i. 34. 



276 SUETONIUS. 

offence. Not to mention particulars, he spent enormous 
sums, and the whole treasures which had been amassed 
by Tiberius Caesar, amounting to two thousand seven 
hundred millions of sesterces, within less than a year. 

XXXVIII. Having therefore quite exhausted these 
funds, and being in want of money, he had recourse to 
plundering the people, by every mode of false accusation, 
confiscation, and taxation, that could be invented. He 
declared that no one had any right to the freedom of 
Rome, although their ancestors had acquired it for them- 
selves and their posterity, unless they were sons ; for that 
none beyond that degree ought to be considered as pos- 
terity. When the grants of the Divine Julius and Augus- 
tus were produced to him, he only said, that he was very 
sorry that they were obsolete and out of date. He also 
charged all those with making false returns, who, after 
the. taking of the census, had by any means whatever 
increased their property. He annulled the wills of all 
who had been centurions of the first rank, as testimonies 
of their base ingratitude, if from the beginning of Tibe- 
rius's reign they had not left either that prince or himself 
their heir. He also set aside the wills of all others, if 
any person only pretended to say, that they designed at 
their death to leave Caesar their heir. The public becom- 
ing terrified at this proceeding, he was now appointed 
joint-heir with their friends, and in the case of parents with 
their children, by persons unknown to him. Those who 
lived any considerable time after making such a will, he 
said, were only making game of him ; and accordingly he 
sent many of them poisoned cakes. He used to try such 
causes himself; fixing previously the sum he proposed 
to raise during the sitting, and, after he had secured it, 
quitting the tribunal. Impatient of the least delay, he 
condemned by a single sentence forty persons, against 



CALIGULA. 277 

whom there were different charges ; boasting to Caesonia 
when she awoke, " how much business he had dispatched 
while she was taking her mid-day sleep." He exposed 
to sale by auction, the remains of the apparatus used in 
the public spectacles ; and exacted such biddings, and 
raised the prices so high, that some of the purchasers 
were ruined, and bled themselves to death. There is a 
well-known story told of Aponius Saturninus, who hap- 
pening to fall asleep as he sat on a bench at the sale, 
Caius called out to the auctioneer, not to overlook the 
praetorian personage who nodded to him so often ; and 
accordingly the salesman went on, pretending to take the 
nods for tokens of assent, until thirteen gladiators were 
knocked down to him at the sum of nine millions of ses- 
terces, 1 he being in total ignorance of what was doing. 

XXXIX. Having also sold in Gaul all the clothes, 
furniture, slaves, and even freedmen belonging to his sis- 
ters, at prodigious prices, after their condemnation, he 
was so much delighted with his pains that he sent to 
Rome for all the furniture of the old palace ; 2 pressing 
for its conveyance all the carriages let to hire in the city, 
with the horses and mules belonging to the bakers, so 
that they often wanted bread at Rome ; and many who 
had suits at law in progress lost their causes, because 
they could not make their appearance in due time accord- 
ing to their recognizances. In the sale of this furniture 
every artifice of fraud and imposition was employed. 
Sometimes he would rail at the bidders for being- nio-- 

o o 

gardly, and ask them " if they were not ashamed to be 
richer than he was ? " at another he would affect to be 
sorry that the property of princes should be passing into 

1 Most of the gladiators were slaves. 

2 The part of the Palatium built or occupied by Augustus and Tibe- 
rius. 



278 SUETONIUS. 

the hands of private persons. He had found out that a 
rich provincial had given two hundred thousand sesterces 
to his chamberlains for an underhand invitation to his 
table, and he was much pleased to find that honour val- 
ued at so high a rate. The day following, as the same 
person was sitting at the sale, he sent him some bauble, 
for which he told him he must pay two hundred thousand 
sesterces, and " that he should sup with Caesar upon his 
own invitation." 

XL. He levied new taxes, and such as were never 
before known, at first by the publicans, but afterwards, 
because their profit was enormous, by centurions and tri- 
bunes of the pretorian guards ; no description of pro- 
perty or persons was exempted from some kind of tax or 
other. For all eatables brought into the city a certain 
excise was exacted ; for all law-suits or trials, in whatever 
court, the fortieth part of the sum in dispute ; and such 
as were convicted of compromising litigations were made 
liable to a penalty. Out of the daily wages of the por- 
ters he received an eighth, and from the gains of common 
prostitutes, what they received for one favour granted. 
There was a clause in the law, that all bawds who kept 
women for prostitution or sale, should be liable to pay, 
and that marriage itself should not be exempted. 

XLI. These taxes being imposed, but the act by 
which they were levied never submitted to public inspec- 
tion, great grievances were experienced from the want of 
sufficient knowledge of the law. At length, on the urgent 
demands of the Roman people, he published the law, but 
it was written in a very small hand, and posted up in 
a corner, so that no one could make a copy of it. To 
leave no sort of gain untried, he opened brothels in the 
Palatium, with a number of cells, furnished suitably to the 
dignity of the place ; in which married women and free- 



CALIGULA. 279 

born youths were ready for the reception of visitors. 
He sent likewise his nomenclators about the forums and 
courts, to invite people of all ages, the old as well as the 
young, to his brothel, to come and satisfy their lusts : and 
he was ready to lend his customers money upon interest ; 
clerks attending to take down their names in public, as 
persons who contributed to the emperor's revenue. An- 
other method of raising money, which he thought not be- 
low his notice, was gaming, which, by the help of lying 
and perjury, he turned to considerable account. Leaving 
once the management of his play to his partner in the 
game, he stepped into the court, and observing two rich 
Roman knights passing by, he ordered them immediately 
to be seized, and their estates confiscated. Then return- 
ing in great glee, he boasted that he had never made a 
better throw in his life. 

XLII. After the birth of his daughter, complaining of 
his poverty, and the burdens to which he was subjected, 
not only as an emperor, but a father, he made a general 
collection for her maintenance and fortune. He likewise 
gave public notice, that he would receive new-year's gifts 
on the calends of January following; and accordingly 
stood in the vestibule of his house, to clutch the presents 
which the people of all ranks threw down before him by 
handfuls and lapfuls. At last, being seized with an invin- 
cible desire of feeling money, taking off his slippers, he 
repeatedly walked over great heaps of gold coin spread 
upon the spacious floor, and then laying himself down, 
rolled his whole body in gold over and over again. 

XLIII. Only once in his life did he take an active part 
in military affairs, and then not from any set purpose, but 
during his journey to Mevania, to see the grove and river 
of Clitumnus. 1 Being recommended to recruit a body of 

1 Mevania, a town in Umbria. Its present name is Bevagna. The 



280 SUETONIUS. 

Batavians, who attended him, he resolved upon an expe- 
dition into Germany. Immediately he drew together sev- 
eral legions, and auxiliary forces from all quarters, and 
made every where new levies with the utmost rigour. 
Collecting supplies of all kinds, such as never had been 
assembled upon the like occasion, he set forward on his 
march, and pursued it sometimes with so much haste and 
precipitation, that the pretorian cohorts were obliged, 
contrary to custom, to pack their standards on horses or 
mules, and so follow him. At other times, he would 
march so slow and luxuriously, that he was carried in a 
litter by eight men ; ordering the roads to be swept by 
the people of the neighbouring towns, and sprinkled with 
water to lay the dust. 

XLIV. On arriving at the camp, in order to show him- 
self an active general, and severe disciplinarian, he cash- 
iered the lieutenants who came up late with the auxiliary 
forces from different quarters. In reviewing the army, he 
deprived of their companies most of the centurions of the 
first rank, who had now served their legal time in the 
wars, and some whose time would have expired in a few 
days ; alleging against them their age and infirmity ; and 
railing at the covetous disposition of the rest of them, he 
reduced the bounty due to those who had served out their 
time to the sum of six thousand sesterces. Though he 
only received the submission of Adminius, the son of 
Cunobeline, a British king, who being driven from his 
native country by his father, came over to him with a 
small body of troops, 1 yet, as if the whole island had 

Clitumnus is a river in the same country, celebrated for the breed of 
white cattle, which feed in the neighbouring pastures. 

1 Caligula appears to have meditated an expedition to Britain at the 
time of his pompous ovation at Puteoli, mentioned in c. xiii. ; but if 
Julius Caesar could gain no permanent footing in this island, it was 



CALIGULA. 281 

been surrendered to him, he dispatched magnificent let- 
ters to Rome, ordering the hearers to proceed in their 
carriages directly up to the forum and the senate-house, 
and not to deliver the letters but to the consuls in the 
temple of Mars, and in the presence of a full assembly 
of the senators. 

XLV. Soon after this, there being no hostilities, he 
ordered a few Germans of his guard to be carried over 
and placed in concealment on the other side of the Rhine, 
and word to be brought him after dinner, that an enemy 
was advancing with great impetuosity. This being accord- 
ingly done, he immediately threw himself, with his friends, 
and a party of the pretorian knights, into the adjoining 
wood, where lopping branches from the trees, and form- 
ing trophies of them, he returned by torch-light, upbraid- 
ing those who did not follow him, with timorousness and 
cowardice : but he presented the companions and sharers 
of his victory with crowns of a new form, and under a 
new name, having the sun, moon, and stars represented 
on them, which he called Exploratoricz. Again, some 
hostages were by his order taken from the school, and 
privately sent off; upon notice of which he immediately 
rose from table, pursued them with the cavalry, as if they 
had run away, and coming up with them, brought them 
back in fetters ; proceeding to an extravagant pitch of 
ostentation likewise in his military comedy. Upon his 
again sitting down to table, it being reported to him that 
the troops were all reassembled, he ordered them to sit 
down as they were, in their armour, animating them in 
the words of the well-known verse of Virgil : 

Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis. — s£n. 1. 
Bear up, and save yourselves for better days. 

very improbable that a prince of Caligula's character would ever seri- 
ously attempt it, and we shall presently see that the whole affair turned 
out a farce. 



282 SUETONIUS. 

In the meantime he reprimanded the senate and people 
of Rome in a « very severe proclamation "For revelling 
and frequenting the diversions of the circus and the the- 
atre, and enjoying themselves at their villas, whilst their 
emperor was fighting and exposing himself to the great- 
est dangers." 

XL VI. At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, 
he drew up his army on the shore of the ocean, with his 
balistce and other engines of war, and while no one could 
imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden commanded 
them to gather up the sea shells, and fill their helmets 
and the folds of their dress with them, calling them " the 
spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium." 
As a monument of his success, he raised a lofty tower, 
upon which, as at Pharos, 1 he ordered lights to be burned 
in the night-time for the direction of ships at sea ; and 
then promising the soldiers a donative of a hundred den- 
arii 2 a man, as if he had surpassed the most eminent ex- 
amples of generosity, " Go your ways/' said he, " and be 
merry ; go, ye are rich." 

XL VII. In making preparations for his triumph, be- 
sides the prisoners and deserters from the barbarian 
armies, he picked out the men of greatest stature in 
all Gaul, such as he said were fittest to grace a triumph, 
with some of the chiefs, and reserved them to appear in 
the procession, obliging them not only to dye their hair 
yellow and let it grow long, but to learn the German lan- 

1 It seems generally agreed that the point of the coast which was sig- 
nalized by the ridiculous bravado of Caligula, somewhat redeemed by 
the erection of a lighthouse, was Itium, afterwards called Gessoriacum, 
and Bononia (Boulogne), a town belonging to the Gaulish tribe of the 
Morini ; where Julius Caesar embarked on his expedition, and which 
became the usual place of departure for the transit to Britain. 

2 The denarius was worth at this time about seven pence or eight 
pence of English money. 



CALIGULA. 283 

guage and assume the names commonly used in that 
country. He ordered likewise the gallies in which he had 
entered the ocean to be conveyed to Rome a great part 
of the way by land, and wrote to his comptrollers in the 
city " to make proper preparations for a triumph against 
his arrival, at as small expense as possible ; but on a 
scale such as had never been seen before, since they had 
full power over the property of every one." 

XLVIII. Before he left the province he formed a de- 
sign of the most horrid cruelty — to massacre the legions 
which had mutinied upon the death of Augustus, for seiz- 
ing and detaining his father, Germanicus, their com- 
mander, and himself, then an infant, in the camp. 
Though he was with great difficulty dissuaded from this 
rash attempt, yet neither the most urgent entreaties nor 
representations could prevent him from persisting- in the 
design of decimating these legions. Accordingly, he 
ordered them to assemble unarmed, without so much 
as their swords, and then surrounded them with armed 
horse. But finding that many of them, suspecting that 
violence was intended, were making off to arm in their 
own defence, he quitted the assembly as fast as he could, 
and immediately marched for Rome, bending now all his 
fury against the senate, whom he publicly threatened, 
to divert the general attention from the clamour excited 
by his disgraceful conduct. Amongst other pretexts 
of offence, he complained that he was defrauded of a 
triumph which was justly his due, though he had just be- 
fore forbidden, upon pain of death, any honour to be de- 
creed him. 

XLIX. In his march he was waited upon by deputies 
from the senatorian order, entreating him to hasten 
his return. He replied to them, " I will come, I will 
come, and this with me," striking at the same time the 



284 SUETONIUS. 

hilt of his sword. He issued likewise this proclama- 
tion: "I am coming, but for those only who wish for 
me, the equestrian order and the people; for I shall 
no longer treat the senate as their fellow-citizen or 
prince." He forbad any of the senators to come to meet 
him ; and either abandoning or deferring his triumph, he 
entered the city in ovation on his birth-day. Within four 
months from this period he was slain, after he had perpe- 
trated enormous crimes, and while he was meditating the 
execution, if possible, of still greater. He had enter- 
tained a design of removing to Antium, and afterwards 
to Alexandria, having first cut off the flower of the eques- 
trian and senatorian orders. This is placed beyond all 
question by two books which were found in his cabinet 
under different titles, one being called the sword, and the 
other the dagger. They both contained private marks, 
and the names of those who were devoted to death. 
There was also found a large chest, filled with a variety 
of poisons, which being afterwards thrown into the sea 
by order of Claudius, are said to have so infected the 
waters that the fish were poisoned and cast dead by the 
tide upon the neighbouring shores. 

L. He was tall, of a pale complexion, ill-shaped, his 
neck and legs very slender, his eyes and temples hollow, 
his brows broad and knit, his hair thin, and the crown of 
the head bald. The other parts of his body were much 
covered with hair. On this account it was reckoned a 
capital crime for any person to look down from above as 
he was passing by, or so much as to name a goat. His 
countenance, which was naturally hideous and frightful, 
he purposely rendered more so, forming it before a mir- 
ror into the most horrible contortions. He was crazy 
both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the 
falling sickness, When he arrived at the age of man- 



CALIGULA. 285 

hood he endured fatigue tolerably well ; but still, occa- 
sionally, he was liable to a faintness, during which he re- 
mained incapable of any effort. He was not insensible of 
the disorder of his mind, and sometimes had thoughts 
of retiring to clear his brain. 1 It is believed that his wife 
Csesonia administered to him a love potion which threw 
him into a frenzy. What most of all disordered him was 
want of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four 
hours rest in a night ; and even then his sleep was not 
sound, but disturbed by strange dreams, fancying, among 
other things, that a form representing the ocean spoke to 
him. Being, therefore, often weary with lying awake so 
long, sometimes he sat up in his bed, at others, walked in 
the longest porticos about the house, and from time to 
time invoked and looked out for the approach of day. 

LI. To this crazy constitution of his mind may, I 
think, very justly be ascribed two faults which he had of a 
nature directly repugnant one to the other, namely, an 
excessive confidence and the most abject timidity. For 
he, who affected so much to despise the gods, was ready 
to shut his eyes and wrap up his head in his cloak at the 
slightest storm of thunder and lightning; and if it was 
violent he got up and hid himself under his bed. In his 
visit to Sicily, after ridiculing many strange objects which 
that country affords, he ran away suddenly in the night 
from Messini, terrified by the smoke and rumbling at the 
summit of Mount ^Etna. And though in words he was 
very valiant against the barbarians, yet upon passing a 
narrow defile in Germany in his light car, surrounded by 
a strong body of his troops, some one happening to say, 
"There would be no small consternation amongst us 
if an enemy were to appear," he immediately mounted 
his horse and rode towards the bridge in great haste ; but 
1 Probably to Anticyra. See before, c. xxix., note. 



286 SUETONIUS. 

finding them blocked up with camp-followers and bag- 
gage-wagons, he was in such a hurry that he caused him- 
self to be carried in men's hands over the heads of the 
crowd. Soon afterwards, upon hearing that the Germans 
were again in rebellion, he prepared to quit Rome and 
equipped a fleet, comforting himself with this considera- 
tion, that if the enemy should prove victorious and pos- 
sess themselves of the heights of the Alps as the Cimbri 1 
had done, or of the city, as the Senones 2 formerly did, he 
should still have in reserve the transmarine provinces. 3 
Hence it was, I suppose, that it occurred to his assassins 
to invent the story intended to pacify the troops who mu- 
tinied at his death, that he had laid violent hands upon 
himself in a fit of terror occasioned by the news brought 
him of the defeat of his army. 

LII. In the fashion of his clothes, shoes, and all the 
rest of his dress, he did not wear what was either 
national, or properly civic, or peculiar to the male sex, or 
appropriate to mere mortals. He often appeared abroad 
in a short coat of stout cloth, richly embroidered and 
blazing with jewels, in a tunic with sleeves, and with 
bracelets upon his arms ; sometimes all in silks and hab- 
ited like a woman ; at other times in the crepidcz or bus- 
kins ; sometimes in the sort of shoes used by the light- 
armed soldiers, or in the sock used by women, and com- 
monly with a golden beard fixed to his chin, holding in 
his hand a thunderbolt, a trident, or a caduceus, marks of 

1 The Cimbri were German tribes on the Elbe, who invaded Italy a. 
u. c. 640, and were defeated by Metellus. 

2 The Senones were a tribe of Cis- Alpine Gauls, settled in Umbria, 
who sacked and pillaged Rome a. u. c. 363. 

3 By the transmarine provinces, Asia, Egypt, etc. are meant ; so that 
we find Caligula entertaining visions of an eastern empire, and remov- 
ing the seat of government, which were long afterwards realized in 
the time of Constantine. 



CALIGULA. 287 

distinction belonging to the gods only. Sometimes, too, 
he appeared in the habit of Venus. He wore very com- 
monly the triumphal ornaments, even before his expedi- 
tion, and sometimes the breast-plate of Alexander the 
Great, taken out of his coffin. 1 

LIII. With regard to the liberal sciences, he was little 
conversant in philology, but applied himself with assiduity 
to the study of eloquence, being indeed in point of enun- 
ciation tolerably elegant and ready; and in his perora- 
tions, when he was moved to anger, there was an abun- 
dant flow of words and periods. In speaking, his action 
was vehement, and his voice so strong, that he was heard 
at a great distance. When winding up an harangue, he 
threatened to draw " the sword of his lucubration," hold- 
ing a loose and smooth style in such contempt, that he 
said Seneca, who was then much admired, " wrote only 
detached essays," and that " his language was nothing 
but sand without lime." He often wrote answers to the 
speeches of successful orators ; and employed himself 
in composing accusations or vindications of eminent per- 
sons, who were impeached before the senate ; and gave 
his vote for or against the party accused, according to his 
success in speaking, inviting the equestrian order, by 
proclamation, to hear him. 

LIV. He also zealously applied himself to the practice 
of several other arts of different kinds, such as fencing, 
charioteering, singing, and dancing. In the first of these, 
he practiced with the weapons used in war ; and drove 
the chariot in circuses built in several places. He was 
so extremely fond of singing and dancing, that he could 
not refrain in the theatre from singing with the tragedians, 
and imitating the gestures of the actors, either by way 
of applause or correction. A night exhibition which he 
1 See Augustus, c. xviii. 



288 SUETONIUS. 

had ordered the day he was slain, was thought to be in- 
tended for no other reason, than to take the opportunity 
afforded by the licentiousness of the season, to make his 
first appearance upon the stage. Sometimes, also, he 
danced in the night. Summoning once to the palatium, in 
the second watch of the night, 1 three men of consular 
rank, who feared the words of the message, he placed 
them on the proscenium of the stage, and then suddenly 
came bursting out, with a loud noise of flutes and casta- 
nets, 2 dressed in a mantle and tunic reaching down to his 
heels. Having danced out a song, he retired. Yet he 
who had acquired such dexterity in other exercises, never 
learnt to swim. 

LV. Those for whom he once conceived a regard, he 
favoured even to madness. He used to kiss Mnester, 
the pantomimic actor, publicly in the theatre ; and if any 
person made the least noise while he was dancing, he 
would order him to be dragged from his seat, and 
scourged him with his own hand. A Roman knight once 
making some bustle, he sent him, by a centurion, an 
order to depart forthwith for Ostia, 3 and carry a letter 
from him to king Ptolemy in Mauritania. The letter was 
comprised in these words : " Do neither good nor harm 
to the bearer." He made some gladiators captains of his 
German guards. He deprived the gladiators called Mir- 
millones of some of their arms. One Columbus coming 

1 About midnight, the watches being divided into four. 

2 Scabella : commentators are undecided as to the nature of this in- 
strument. Some of them suppose it to have been either a sort of cymbal 
or castanet, but Pitiscus in his note gives a figure of an ancient statue 
preserved at Florence, in which a dancer is represented with cymbals in 
his hands, and a kind of wind instrument attached to the toe of his left 
foot, by which it is worked by pressure, something in the way of an 
accordion. 

8 The port of Rome. 



CALIGULA. 289 

off with victory in a combat, but being slightly wounded, 
he ordered some poison to be infused in the wound, 
which he thence called Columbinurn. For thus it was 
certainly named with his own hand in a list of other 
poisons. He was so extravagantly fond of the party of 
charioteers whose colours were green, 1 that he supped and 
lodged for some time constantly in the stable where their 
horses were kept. At a certain revel, he made a present 
of two millions of sesterces to one Cythicus, a driver of 
a chariot. The day before the Circensian games, he used 
to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighbour- 
hood, that the repose of his horse Incitatus? might not be 
disturbed. For this favourite animal, besides a marble 
stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jewelled 
frontlet, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, 
and fine furniture, for the reception of such as were in- 
vited in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said 
that he intended to make him consul. 

LVI. In this frantic and savage career, numbers had 
formed designs for cutting him off; but one or two con- 
spiracies being discovered, and others postponed for want 
of opportunity, at last two men concerted a plan together, 
and accomplished their purpose ; not without the privity 
of some of the greatest favourites amongst his freedmen, 
and the prefects of the pretorian guards ; because, having 
been named, though falsely, as concerned in one con- 
spiracy against him, they perceived that they were sus- 
pected and become objects of his hatred. For he had im- 

1 The Romans, in their passionate devotion to the amusements of the 
circus and the theatre, were divided into factions, who had their favour- 
ites among the racers and actors, the former being distinguished by the 
colours of the party to which they belonged. See before, c. xviii, and 
Tiberius, c. xxxvii. 

2 In the slang of the turf, the name of Caligula's celebrated horse 
might, perhaps, be translated " Go-a-head." 

*9 



2 9 o SUETONIUS. 

mediately endeavoured to render them obnoxious to the 
soldiery, drawing his sword, and declaring, "That he 
would kill himself if they thought him worthy of death ;" 
and ever after he was continually accusing them to one 
another, and setting them all mutually at variance. The 
conspirators having resolved to fall upon him as he re- 
turned at noon from the Palatine games, Cassius Chaerea, 
tribune of the pretorian guards, claimed the part of mak- 
ing the onset. This Chaerea was now an elderly man, 
and had been often reproached by Caius for effeminacy. 
When he came for the watchword, the latter would give 
" Priapus," or " Venus ;" and if on any occasion he re- 
turned thanks, would offer him his hand to kiss, making 
with his fingers an obscene gesture. 

LVII. His approaching fate was indicated by many 
prodigies. The statue of Jupiter at Olympia, which he 
had ordered to be taken down and brought to Rome, 
suddenly burst out into such a violent fit of laughter, that, 
the machines employed in the work giving way, the work- 
men took to their heels. When this accident happened, 
there came up a man named Cassius, who said that he 
was commanded in a dream to sacrifice a bull to Jupiter. 
The Capitol at Capua was struck with lightning upon the 
ides of March [15th March] ; as was also, at Rome, the 
apartment of the chief porter of the Palatium. Some 
construed the latter into a presage that the master of the 
palace was in danger from his own guards ; and the other 
they regarded as a sign, that an illustrious person would 
be cut off, as had happened before on that day. Sylla, 
the astrologer, being consulted by him respecting his 
nativity, assured him, "That death would unavoidably 
and speedily befall him." The oracle of Fortune at Anti- 
um likewise forewarned him of Cassius ; on which account 
he had given orders for putting to death Cassius Longi- 



CALIGULA. 291 

nus, at that time proconsul of Asia, not considering that 
Chaerea bore also that name. The day preceding his 
death he dreamt that he was standing in heaven near the 
throne of Jupiter, who giving him a push with the great 
toe of his right foot, he fell headlong upon the earth. 
Some things which happened the very day of his death, 
and only a little before it, were likewise considered as 
ominous presages of that event. Whilst he was at sac- 
rifice, he was bespattered with the blood of a flamingo. 
And Mnester, the pantomimic actor, performed in a play, 
which the tragedian Neoptolemus had formerly acted at 
the games in which Philip, the king of Macedon, was 
slain. And in the piece called Laureolus, in which the 
principal actor, running out in a hurry, and falling, vom- 
ited blood, several of the inferior actors vying with each 
other to give the best specimen of their art, made the 
whole stage flow with blood. A spectacle had been pur- 
posed to be performed that night, in which the fables of 
the infernal regions were to be represented by Egyptians 
and Ethiopians. 

LVIII. On the ninth of the calends of February [24th 
January], and about the seventh hour of the day, after 
hesitating whether he should rise to dinner, as his stom- 
ach was disordered by what he had eaten the day before, 
at last, by the advice of his friends, he came forth. In 
the vaulted passage through which he had to pass, were 
some boys of noble extraction, who had been brought 
from Asia to act upon the stage, waiting for him in a pri- 
vate corridor, and he stopped to see and speak to them ; 
and had not the leader of the party said that he was suf- 
fering from cold, he would have gone back, and made 
them act immediately. Respecting what followed, two 
different accounts are given. Some say, that, whilst he 
was speaking to the boys, Chaerea came behind him, and 



2 9 2 SUETONIUS. 

gave him a heavy blow on the neck with his sword, first 
crying out, " Take this :" that then a tribune, by name Cor- 
nelius Sabinus, another of the conspirators, ran him through 
the breast. Others say, that the crowd being kept at a 
distance by some centurions who were in the plot, Sabinus 
came, according to custom, for the word, and that Caius 
gave him " Jupiter," upon which Chaerea cried out, " Be it 
so!" and then, orvhis looking round, clove one of his jaws 
with a blow. As he lay on the ground, crying out that 
he was still alive, 1 the rest dispatched him with thirty 
wounds. For the word agreed upon among them all 
was, " Strike again." Some likewise ran their swords 
through his privy parts. Upon the first bustle, the litter 
bearers came running in with their poles to his assistance, 
and, immediately afterwards, his German body guards, 
who killed some of the assassins, and also some senators 
who had no concern in the affair. 

LIX. He lived twenty-nine years, and reigned three 
years, ten months and eight days. His body was carried 
privately into the Lamian Gardens, 2 where it was half 
burnt upon a pile hastily raised, and then had some earth 
carelessly thrown over it. It was afterwards disinterred 
by his sisters, on their return from banishment, burnt to 
ashes, and buried. Before this was done, it is well-known 
that the keepers of the gardens were greatly disturbed 
by apparitions ; and that not a night passed without some 

1 Josephus, who supplies us with minute details of the assassination of 
Caligula, says that he made no outcry, either disdaining it, or because 
an alarm would have been useless ; but that he attempted to make his 
escape through a corridor which led to some baths behind the palace. 
Among the ruins on the Palatine hill, these baths still attract attention, 
some of the frescos being in good preservation. See the account in 
Josephus, xix. i, 2. 

2 The Lamian was an ancient family, the founders of Formiae. They 
had gardens on the Esquiline mount. 



CALIGULA. 293 

terrible alarm or other in the house where he was slain, 
until it was destroyed by fire. His wife Caesonia was 
killed with him, being stabbed by a centurion ; and his 
daughter had her brains knocked out against a wall. 

LX. Of the miserable condition of those times, any 
person may easily form an estimate from the following 
circumstances. When his death was made public, it was 
not immediately credited. People entertained a suspicion 
that a report of his being killed had been contrived and 
spread by himself with the view of discovering how they 
stood affected towards him. Nor had the conspirators 
fixed upon any one to succeed him. The senators were 
so unanimous in their resolution to assert the liberty of 
their country, that the consuls assembled them at first not 
in the usual place of meeting, because it was named after 
Julius Caesar, but in the Capitol. Some proposed to 
abolish the memory of the Caesars, and level their temples 
with the ground. It was particularly remarked on this 
occasion, that all the Caesars, who had the praenomen of 
Caius, died by the sword, from the Caius Caesar who was 
slain in the times of Cinna. 



Unfortunately, a great chasm in the annals of Tacitus, at this 
period, precludes all information from that historian respecting the 
reign of Caligula ; but from what he mentions towards the close of the 
preceding chapter, it is evident that Caligula was forward to seize the 
reins of government upon the death of Tiberius, whom, though he 
rivalled him in his vices, he was far from imitating in his dissimulation. 
Amongst the people, the remembrance of Germanicus' virtues cherish- 
ed for his family an attachment which was probably increased by its 
misfortunes ; and they were anxious to see revived in the son the popu- 
larity of the father. Considering, however, that Caligula's vicious 
disposition was already known, and that it had even been an induce- 
ment with Tiberius to procure his succession, in order that it might 
prove a foil to his own memory, it is surprising that no effort was made 



294 SUETONIUS. 

at this juncture to shake off the despotism which had been so intoler- 
able in the last reign, and restore the ancient liberty of the republic. 
Since the commencement of the imperial dominion, there never had 
been any period so favourable for a counter-revolution as the present 
crisis. There existed now no Livia to influence the minds of the sen- 
ate and people in respect of the government; nor was there any other 
person allied to the family of Germanicus, whose countenance or 
intrigues could promote the views of Caligula. He himself was now 
only in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was totally inexperienced in 
the administration of public affairs, had never performed even the 
smallest service to his country, and was generally known to be of a 
character which disgraced his illustrious descent. Yet, in spite of all 
these circumstances, such was the destiny of Rome, that his accession 
afforded joy to the soldiers, who had known him in his childhood, and 
to the populace in the capital, as well as the people in the provinces, 
who were flattered with the delusive expectation of receiving a prince 
who should adorn the throne with the amiable virtues of Germanicus. 

It is difficult to say, whether weakness of understanding, or corrup- 
tion of morals, were more conspicuous in the character of Caligula. 
He seems to have discovered from his earliest years an innate depravity 
of mind, which was undoubtedly much increased by defect of educa- 
tion. He had lost both his parents at an early period of life ; and 
from Tiberius' s own character, as well as his views in training the per- 
son who should succeed him on the throne, there is reason to think, that 
if any attention whatever was paid to the education of Caligula, it was 
directed to vitiate all his faculties and passions, rather than to correct 
and improve them. If such was really the object, it was indeed prose- 
cuted with success. 

The commencement, however, of his reign was such as by no means 
prognosticated its subsequent transition. The sudden change of his 
conduct, the astonishing mixture of imbecility and presumption, of 
moral turpitude and frantic extravagance, which he afterwards evinced ; 
such as rolling himself over heaps of gold, his treatment of his horse 
Incitatus, and his design of making him consul, seem to justify a sus- 
picion that his brain had actually been affected, either by the potion, 
said to have been given him by his wife Caesonia, or otherwise. Phil- 
tres, or love potions, as they were called, were frequent in those times , 
and the people believed that they operated upon the mind by a myste- 
rious and sympathetic power. It is, however, beyond a doubt, that 
their effects were produced entirely by the action of their physical 
qualities upon the organs of the body. They were usually made of 



CALIGULA. 295 

the satyrion, which, according to Pliny, was a provocative. They were 
generally given by women to their husbands at bed-time ; and it was 
necessary towards their successful operation, that the parties should 
sleep together. This circumstance explains the whole mystery. The 
philtres were nothing more than medicines of a stimulating quality, 
which, after exciting violent, but temporary effects, enfeebled the con- 
stitution, and occasioned nervous disorders, by which the mental fac- 
ulties, as well as the corporeal, might be injured. That this was really 
the case with Caligula, seems probable, not only from the falling sick- 
ness, to which he was subject, but from the habitual wakefulness of 
which he complained. 

The profusion of this emperor, during his short reign of three years 
and ten months, is unexampled in history. In the midst of profound 
peace, without any extraordinary charges either civil or military, he 
expended, in less than one year, besides the current revenue of the 
empire, the sum of $108,796,875, which had been left by Tiberius at 
his death. To supply the extravagance of future years, new and exor- 
bitant taxes were imposed upon the people, and those too on the neces- 
saries of life. There existed now among the Romans every motive 
that could excite a general indignation against the government; yet 
such was still the dread of imperial power, though vested in the hands 
of so weak and despicable a sovereign, that no insurrection was at- 
tempted, nor any extensive conspiracy formed ; but the obnoxious em- 
peror fell at last a sacrifice to a few centurions of his own guard. 

This reign was of too short duration to afford any new productions in 
literature ; but, had it been extended to a much longer period, the 
effects would probably have been the same. Polite learning never 
could flourish under an emperor who entertained a design of destroying 
the writings of Virgil and Livy. It is fortunate that these, and other 
valuable productions of antiquity, were too widely diffused over the 
world, and too carefully preserved, to be in danger of perishing through 
the frenzy of this capricious barbarian. 



TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CESAR. 1 

I. Livia having married Augustus when she was 
pregnant was, within three months afterwards, delivered 
of Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, who had at first 
the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of Nero ; 
and it was suspected that he was begotten in adultery by 
his father-in-law. The following verse, however, was im- 
mediately in every one's mouth : — 

To~i<; iuTU/oucrt xdc rpi/xyjva Ttaidia. 

Nine months for common births the fates decree; 
But, for the great, reduce the term to three. 

This Drusus, during the time of his being quaestor and 
praetor, commanded in the Rhaetian and German wars, 
and was the first of all the Roman generals who navi- 
gated the Northern Ocean. 2 He made likewise some 
prodigious trenches beyond the Rhine, 3 which to this day 
are called by his name. He overthrew the enemy in sev- 
eral battles and drove them far back into the depths of 
the desert. Nor did he desist from pursuing them, until 
an apparition, in the form of a barbarian woman, of more 

1 A. U. C. 714. 

2 Pliny describes Drusus as having in this voyage circumnavigated 
Germany, and reached the Cimbrian Chersonese and the Scythian 
shores, reeking with constant fogs. 

8 Tacitus, Annal. xi. 8, 1, mentions this fosse, and says that Drusus 
sailed up the Meuse and the Waal. Cluverius places it between the 
village of Iselvort and the town of Doesborg. 
296 




THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS 1 



GEBBIE & C< 



CLAUDIUS. 297 

than human size, appeared to him, and, in the Latin 
tongue, forbad him to proceed any further. For these 
achievements he had the honour of an ovation and the 
triumphal ornaments. After his praetorship, he imme- 
diately entered on the office of consul, and returning 
to Germany, died of disease, in the summer encampment, 
which thence obtained the name of " The Unlucky 
Camp." His corpse was carried to Rome by the princi- 
pal persons of the several municipalities and colonies 
upon the road, being met and received by the recorders 
of each place, and buried in the Campus Martius. In 
honour of his memory, the army erected a monument, 
round which the soldiers used, annually, upon a certain 
day, to march in solemn procession, and persons deputed 
from the several cities of Gaul performed religious rites. 
The senate likewise, among various other honours, de- 
creed for him a triumphal arch of marble, with trophies, 
in the Appian Way, and gave the cognomen of German- 
icus to him and his posterity. In him the civil and mili- 
tary virtues were equally displayed ; for, besides his vic- 
tories, he gained from the enemy the Spolia Opinio,} and 
frequently marked out the German chiefs in the midst of 
their army, and encountered them in single combat at the 
utmost hazard of his life. He likewise often declared 
that he would, some time or other, if possible, restore the 
ancient government, On this account, I suppose, some 
have ventured to affirm that Augustus was jealous of him 

1 The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy's king, or 
chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general. They were 
always hung up in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Those spoils had 
been obtained only thrice since the foundation of Rome ; the first by 
Romulus, who slew Acron, king of the Caeninenses ; the next by A. 
Cornelius Cossus, who slew Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, A. u. 
318; and the third by M. Claudius Marcellus, who slew Viridomarus, 
king of the Gauls, a. u. 330. 



2 9 8 SUETONIUS. 

and recalled him ; and because he made no haste to com- 
ply with the order, took him off by poison. This I men- 
tion, that I may not be guilty of any omission, more than 
because I think it either true or probable, since Augustus 
loved him so much when living that he always, in his wills, 
made him joint-heir with his sons, as he once declared in 
the senate ; and upon his decease extolled him in a speech 
to the people, to that degree, that he prayed the gods " to 
make his Caesars like him, and to grant himself as hon- 
ourable an exit out of this world as they had given him." 
And not satisfied with inscribing upon his tomb an epi- 
taph in verse composed by himself, he wrote likewise the 
history of his life in prose. He had by the younger An- 
tonia several children, but left behind him only three, 
namely, Germanicus, Livilla and Claudius. 

II. Claudius was born at Lyons, in the consulship of 
Julius Antonius and Fabius Africanus, upon the first of 
August, 2 the very day upon which an altar was first dedi- 
cated there to Augustus. He was named Tiberius 
Claudius Drusus, but soon afterwards, upon the adoption 
of his elder brother into the Julian family, he assumed the 
cognomen of Germanicus. He was left an infant by his 
father, and during almost the whole of his minority, and 
for some time after he attained the age of manhood, was 
afflicted with a variety of obstinate disorders, insomuch 
that his mind and body being greatly impaired, he was, 
even after his arrival at years of maturity, never thought 
sufficiently qualified for any public or private employ- 
ment. He was, therefore, during a long time, and even 
after the expiration of his minority, under the direction of 
a pedagogue, who, he complains in a certain memoir, 
" was a barbarous wretch, and formerly superintendent of 
the mule-drivers, who was selected for his governor on 

3 A. U. C. 744. 



CLAUDIUS. 299 

purpose to correct him severely on every trifling occa- 
sion. On account of this crazy constitution of body and 
mind, at the spectacle of gladiators, which he gave the 
people, jointly with his brother, in honour of his father's 
memory, he presided, muffled up in a pallium — a new 
fashion. When he assumed the manly habit, he was car- 
ried in a litter, at midnight, to the Capitol, without the 
usual ceremony. 

III. He applied himself, however, from an early age, 
with great assiduity to the study of the liberal sciences, 
and frequently published specimens of his skill in each of 
them. But never, with all his endeavours, could he attain 
to any public post in the government, or afford any hope 
of arriving at distinction thereafter. His mother, An- 
tonia, frequently called him " an abortion of a man, that 
had been only begun, but never finished, by nature." 
And when she would upbraid any one with dulness, she 
said, " He was a greater fool than her son, Claudius." 
His grandmother, Augusta, always treated him with the 
utmost contempt, very rarely spoke to him, and when she 
did admonish him upon any occasion, it was in writing, 
very briefly and severely, or by messengers. His sister, 
Livilla, upon hearing that he was about to be created em- 
peror, openly and loudly expressed her indignation that 
the Roman people should experience a fate so severe 
and so much below their grandeur. To exhibit the opin- 
ion, both favourable and otherwise, entertained concern- 
ing him by Augustus, his great-uncle, I have here sub- 
joined some extracts from the letters of that emperor. 

IV. " I have had some conversation with Tiberius, ac- 
cording to your desire, my dear Livia, as to what must be 
done with your grandson, Tiberius, at the games of Mars. 
We are both agreed in this, that, once for all, we ought 
to determine what course to take with him. For if he be 



300 



SUETONIUS. 



really sound and, so to speak, quite right in his intellects, 1 
why should we hesitate to promote him by the same steps 
and degrees we did his brother ? But if we find him be- 
low par, and deficient both in body and mind, we must 
beware of giving occasion for him and ourselves to be 
laughed at by the world, which is ready enough to make 
such things the subject of mirth and derision. For we 
shall be never easy, if we are always to be debating upon 
every occasion of this kind, without settling, in the first 
instance, whether he be really capable of public offices or 
not. With regard to what you consult me about at the 
present moment, I am not against his superintending the 
feast of the priests, in the games of Mars, if he will suffer 
himself to be governed by his kinsman, Silanus's son, 
that he may do nothing to make the people stare and 
laugh at him. But I do not approve of his witnessing the 
Circensian games from the Pulvinar. He will be there 
exposed to view in the very front of the theatre. Nor 
do I like that he should go to the Alban Mount, 2 or be at 
Rome during the Latin festival. 3 For if he be capable of 
attending his brother to the mount, why is he not made 
prefect of the city ? Thus, my dear Livia, you have my 

1 This epistle, as it was the habit of Augustus, is interspersed with 
Greek phrases. 

a The Alban Mount is the most interesting feature of the scenery of 
the Campagna about Rome, Monti Cavo, the summit, rising above an 
amphitheatre of magnificent woods, to an elevation of 2965 French 
feet. The view is very extensive : below is the lake of Albano, the 
finest of the volcanic lakes in Italy, and the modern town of the same 
name. Few traces remain of Alba Longa, the ancient capital of La- 
tium. 

3 On the summit of the Alban Mount, on the site of the present con- 
vent, stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the Latin tribes as- 
sembled annually, and renewed their league, during the Feriae Latinse, 
instituted by Tarquinus Superbus. It was here, also, that Roman gen- 
erals, who were refused the honours of a full triumph, performed the 



CLAUDIUS. 301 

thoughts upon the matter. In my opinion, we ought to 
settle this affair once for all, that we may not be always 
in suspense between hope and fear. You may, if you 
think proper, give your kinsman Antonia this part of my 
letter to read." In another letter, he writes as follows: 
" I shall invite the youth, Tiberius, every day during your 
absence, to supper, that he may not sup alone with his 
friends Sulpicius and Athenodorus. I wish the poor 
creature was more cautious and attentive in the choice of 
some one, whose manners, air, and gait might be proper 
for his imitation : 

'Atujs? 7td\>i> iv ToXq <nzouda.ioi<; Atav. 

In things of consequence he sadly fails. 

Where his mind does not run astray, he discovers a noble 
disposition." In a third letter, he says, " Let me die, my 
dear Livia, if I am not astonished, that the declamation 
of your grandson, Tiberius, should please me ; for how 
he who talks so ill, should be able to declaim so clearly 
and properly, I cannot imagine." There is no doubt but 
Augustus, after this, came to a resolution upon the sub- 
ject, and, accordingly, left him invested with no other 
honour than that of the Augural priesthood ; naming 
him amongst the heirs of the third degree, who were but 
distantly allied to his family, for a sixth part of his estate 
only, with a legacy of no more than eight hundred thou- 
sand sesterces. 

V. Upon his requesting some office in the state, Tibe- 
rius granted him the honorary appendages of the consul- 
ovation, and sacrificed to Jupiter Latialis. Part of the triumphal way 
by which the mountain was ascended, formed of vast blocks of lava, is 
still in good preservation, leading through groves of chestnut trees of 
vast size and age. Spanning them with extended arms — none of the 
shortest — the operation was repeated five times in compassing their 
girth. 



302 



SUETONIUS. 



ship, and when he pressed for a legitimate appointment, 
the emperor wrote word back, that " he sent him forty 
gold pieces for his expenses, during the festivals of the 
Saturnalia and Sigillariay Upon this, laying aside all 
hope of advancement, he resigned himself entirely to an 
indolent life ; living in great privacy, one while in his 
gardens, or a villa which he had near the city; another 
while in Campania, where he passed his time in the low- 
est society ; by which means, besides his former char- 
acter of a dull, heavy fellow, he acquired that of a drunk- 
ard and gamester. 

VI. Notwithstanding this sort of life, much respect was 
shown him both in public and private. The equestrian 
order twice made choice of him to intercede on their be- 
half; once to obtain from the consuls the favour of bear- 
ing on their shoulders the corpse of Augustus to Rome, 
and a second time to congratulate him upon the death of 
Sejanus. When he entered the theatre, they used to rise, 
and put off their cloaks. The senate likewise decreed, 
that he should be added to the number of the Augustal col- 
lege of priests, who were chosen by lot ; and soon after- 
wards, when his house was burnt down, that it should be 
rebuilt at the public charge ; and that he should have the 
privilege of giving his vote amongst the men of consular 
rank. This decree was, however, repealed ; Tiberius in- 
sisting to have him excused on account of his imbecility, 
and promising to make good his loss at his own expense. 
But at his death, he named him in his will, amongst his 
third heirs, for a third part of his estate; leaving him 
besides a legacy of two millions of sesterces, and ex- 
pressly recommending him to the armies, the senate and 
people of Rome, amongst his other relations. 

VII. At last Caius, 1 his brother's son, upon his advance- 

1 Caligula. See c. v. of his life 



CLAUDIUS. 303 

ment to the empire, endeavouring to gain the affections 
of the public by all the arts of popularity, Claudius also 
was admitted to public offices, and held the consulship 
jointly with his nephew for two months. As he was en- 
tering the Forum for the first time with the fasces, an 
eagle which was flying that way, alighted upon his right 
shoulder. A second consulship was also allotted him, to 
commence at the expiration of the fourth year. He some- 
times presided at the public spectacles, as the represen- 
tative of Caius ; being always, on those occasions, compli- 
mented with the acclamations of the people, wishing him 
all happiness, sometimes under the title of the emperor's 
uncle, and sometimes under that of Germanicus's brother. 

VIII. Still he was subjected to many slights. If at any 
time he came in late to supper, he was obliged to walk 
round the room some time before he could get a place at 
table. When he indulged himself with sleep after eating, 
which was a common practice with him, the company used 
to throw olive-stones and dates at him. And the buffoons 
who attended would wake him, as if it were only in jest, 
with a cane or a whip. Sometimes they would put slip- 
pers upon his hands, as he lay snoring, that he might, 
upon awaking, rub his face with them. 

IX. He was not only exposed to contempt, but some- 
times likewise to considerable danger: first, in his consul- 
ship ; for, having been too remiss in providing and erect- 
ing the statues of Caius's brothers, Nero and Drusus, he 
was very near being deprived of his office ; and after- 
wards he was continually harassed with informations 
against him by one or other, sometimes even by his own 
domestics. When the conspiracy of Lepidus and Gaetul- 
icus was discovered, being sent with some other deputies 
into Germany, 1 to congratulate the emperor upon the oc- 

1 a. u. c. 793. Life of Caligula, cc. xliv., xlv., &c. 



3 o4 SUETONIUS. 

casion, he was in danger of his life ; Caius being greatly 
enraged, and loudly complaining, that his uncle was sent 
to him, as if he was a boy who wanted a governor. Some 
even say, that he was thrown into a river, in his travelling 
dress. From this period, he voted in the senate always 
the last of the members of consular rank ; being called 
upon after the rest, on purpose to disgrace him. A charge 
for the forgery of a will was also allowed to be prose- 
cuted, though he had only signed it as a witness. At last, 
being obliged to pay eight millions of sesterces on enter- 
ing upon a new office of priesthood, he was reduced to 
such straits in his private affairs, that in order to dis- 
charge his bond to the treasury, he was under the neces- 
sity of exposing to sale his whole estate, by an order of 
the prefects. 

X. Having spent the greater part of his life under these 
and the like circumstances, he came at last to the empire 
in the fiftieth year of his age, 1 by a very surprising turn 
of fortune. Being, as well as the rest, prevented from 
approaching Caius by the conspirators, who dispersed the 
crowd, under the pretext of his desiring to be private, he 
retired into an apartment called the Hermaeum f and soon 
afterwards, terrified by the report of Caius being slain, he 
crept into an adjoining balcony, where he hid himself be- 
hind the hangings of the door. A common soldier, who 
happened to pass that way, spying his feet, and desirous 
to discover who he was, pulled him out ; when immedi- 
ately recognizing him, he threw himself in a great fright 
at his feet, and saluted him by the title of emperor. He 
then conducted him to his fellow-soldiers, who were all in 
a great rage, and irresolute what they should do. They 

1 a. u. c. 794. 

2 The chamber of Mercury ; the names of deities being given to dif- 
ferent apartments, as those " of Isis," " of the Muses," &c. 







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CLAUDIUS. 305 

put him into a litter, and as the slaves of the palace had 
all fled, took their turns in carrying him on their shoul- 
ders, and brought him into the camp, sad and trembling ; 
the people who met him lamenting his situation, as if the 
poor innocent was being carried to execution. Being re- 
ceived within the ramparts, 1 he continued all night with 
the sentries on guard, recovered somewhat from his fright, 
but in no great hopes of the succession. For the consuls, 
with the senate and civic troops, had possessed them- 
selves of the Forum and Capitol, with the determination 
to assert the public liberty ; and he being sent for like- 
wise, by a tribune of the people, to the senate-house, to 
give his advice upon the present juncture of affairs, re- 
turned answer, " I am under constraint, and cannot possi- 
bly come." The day afterwards, the senate being dila- 
tory in their proceedings, and worn out by divisions 
amongst themselves, while the people who surrounded 
the senate-house shouted that they would have one mas- 
ter, naming Claudius, he suffered the soldiers assembled 
under arms to swear allegiance to him, promising them 
fifteen thousand sesterces a man ; he being the first of 
the Caesars who purchased the submission of the soldiers 
with money 2 

XI. Having thus established himself in power, his first 
object was to abolish all remembrance of the two pre- 
ceding days, in which a revolution in the state had been 
canvassed. Accordingly, he passed an act of perpetual 
oblivion and pardon for everything said or done during 
that time; and this he faithfully observed, with the excep- 
tion only of putting to death a few tribunes and centu- 

1 See the note, page 259. 

2 The attentive reader will have marked the gradual growth of the 
power of the pretorian guard, who now, and on so many future occa- 
sions, ruled the destinies of the empire. 



3 o6 SUETONIUS. 

rions concerned in the conspiracy against Caius, both as 
an example, and because he understood that they had 
also planned his own death. He now turned his thoughts 
towards paying respect to the memory of his relations. 
His most solemn and usual oath was, " By Augustus." 
He prevailed upon the senate to decree divine honours 
to his grandmother Livia, with a chariot in the Circensian 
procession drawn by elephants, as had been appointed 
for Augustus, 1 and public offerings to the shades of his 
parents. Besides which, he instituted Circensian games 
for his father, to be celebrated every year, upon his birth- 
day, and, for his mother, a chariot to be drawn through 
the circus ; with the title of Augusta, which had been re- 
fused by his grandmother. 2 To the memory of his bro- 
ther, 3 to which, upon all occasions, he showed a great 
regard, he gave a Greek comedy, to be exhibited in the 
public diversions at Naples, 4 and awarded the crown for 
it, according to the sentence of the judges in that solem- 
nity. Nor did he omit to make honourable and grateful 
mention of Mark Antony; declaring by a proclamation, 
" That he the more earnestly insisted upon the observa- 
tion of his father Drusus's birth-day, because it was like- 
wise that of his grandfather Antony." He completed the 
marble arch near Pompey's theatre, which had formerly 
been decreed by the senate in honour of Tiberius, but 
which had been neglected. 5 And though he cancelled all 

1 See Augustus, cc. xliii., xlv. 

2 lb. c. xcix. 8 Germanicus. 

4 Naples and other cities on that coast were Greek colonies. 

5 This arch was erected in memory of the standards {the eagles) lost 
by Varus, in Germany, having been recovered by Germanicus under 
the auspices of Tiberius. See his Life, c. xlvii. ; and Tacit. AnnaL 
ii. 41. It seems to have stood at the foot of the Capitol, on the side 
of the Forum, near the temple of Concord ; but there are no remains 
of it. 



CLAUDIUS. 307 

the acts of Caius, yet he forbad the day of his assassina- 
tion, notwithstanding it was that of his own accession to 
the empire, to be reckoned amongst the festivals. 

XII. But with regard to his own aggrandisement, he 
was sparing and modest, declining the title of emperor, 
and refusing all excessive honours. He celebrated the 
marriage of his daughter and the birth-day of a grandson 
with great privacy, at home. He recalled none of those 
who had been banished, without a decree of the senate : 
and requested of them permission for the prefect of the 
military tribunes and pretorian guards to attend him in 
the senate-house ; 1 and also that they would be pleased 
to bestow upon his procurators judicial authority in the 
provinces. 2 He asked of the consuls likewise the privi- 
lege of holding fairs upon his private estate. He fre- 
quently assisted the magistrates in the trial of causes, as 
one of their assessors. And when they gave public spec- 
tacles, he would rise up with the rest of the spectators, 
and salute them both by words and gestures. When the 
tribunes of the people came to him while he was on the 
tribunal, he excused himself, because, on account of the 
crowd, he could not hear them unless they stood. In a 
short time, by this conduct, he wrought himself so much 
into the favour and affection of the public, that when, 
upon his going to Ostia, a report was spread in the city 

Tacitus informs us that the same application had been made by 
Tiberius. Annal iii. The prefect of the pretorian guards, high and 
important as his office had now become, was not allowed to enter the 
senate-house, unless he belonged to the equestrian order. 

2 The procurators had the administration of some of the less import- 
ant provinces, with rank and authority inferior to that of the pro-con- 
suls and prefects. Frequent mention of these officers is made by Jose- 
phus j and Pontius Pilate, who sentenced our Lord to crucifixion, held 
that office in Judaea, under Tiberius. 



308 SUETONIUS. 

that he had been waylaid and slain, the people never 
ceased cursing the soldiers for traitors, and the senate as 
parricides, until one or two persons, and presently after 
several others, were brought by the magistrates upon the 
rostra, who assured them that he was alive, and not far 
from the city, on his way home. 

XIII. Conspiracies, however, were formed against him, 
not only by individuals separately, but by a faction ; and 
at last his government was disturbed with a civil war. A 
low fellow was found with a poniard about him, near his 
chamber, at midnight. Two men of the equestrian order 
were discovered waiting for him in the streets, armed 
with a tuck and a huntsman's dagger; one of them in- 
tending to attack him as he came out of the theatre, and 
the other as he was sacrificing in the temple of Mars. 
Gallus Asinius and Statilius Corvinus, grandsons of the 
two orators, Pollio and Messala, 1 formed a conspiracy 
against him, in which they engaged many of his freedmen 
and slaves. Furius Camillus Scribonianus, his lieutenant 
in Dalmatia, broke into rebellion, but was reduced in the 
space of five days ; the legions which he had seduced 
from their oath of fidelity relinquishing their purpose, 
upon an alarm occasioned by ill omens. For when or- 
ders were given them to march, to meet their new em- 
peror, the eagles could not be decorated, nor the stan- 
dards pulled out of the ground, whether it was by 
accident, or a divine interposition. 

XIV. Besides his former consulship, he held the office 
afterwards four times ; the first two successively, 2 but the 
following, after an interval of four years each; 3 the last 
for six months, the others for two ; and the third, upon 

1 Pollio and Messala were distinguished orators, who flourished under 
the Caesars Julius and Augustus. 

2 A. U. C. 795,796. 3 A. U. C. 800, 804. 



CLAUDIUS. 309 

his being chosen in the room of a consul who died ; which 
had never been done by any of the emperors before him. 
Whether he was consul or out of office, he constantly at- 
tended the courts for the administration of justice, even 
upon such days as were solemnly observed as days of re- 
joicing in his family, or by his friends; and sometimes 
upon the public festivals of ancient institution. Nor did 
he always adhere strictly to the letter of the laws, but 
overruled the rigour or lenity of many of their enactments, 
according to his sentiments of justice and equity. For 
where persons lost their suits by insisting upon more than 
appeared to be their due, before the judges of private 
causes, he granted them the indulgence of a second trial. 
And with regard to such as were convicted of any great 
delinquency, he even exceeded the punishment appointed 
by law, and condemned them to be exposed to wild 
beasts. 1 

XV. But in hearing and determining causes, he exhi- 
bited a strange inconsistency of temper, being at one 
time circumspect and sagacious, at another inconsiderate 
and rash, and sometimes frivolous and like one out of his 
mind. In correcting the roll of judges, he struck off the 
name of one who, concealing the privilege his children 
gave him to be excused from serving, had answered to 
his name, as too eager for the office. Another who was 
summoned before him in a cause of his own, but alleged 
that the affair did not properly come under the emperor's 
cognizance, but that of the ordinary judges, he ordered to 
plead the cause himself immediately before him, and show 
in a case of his own, how equitable a judge he would 

1 "Ad bestias" had become a new and frequent sentence for male- 
factors. It will be recollected, that it was the most usual form of mar- 
tyrdom for the primitive Christians. Polycarp was brought all the way 
from Smyrna to be exposed to it in the amphitheatre at Rome. 



310 SUETONIUS. 

prove in that of other persons. A woman refusing to 
acknowledge her own son, and there being no clear proof 
on either side, he obliged her to confess the truth, by or- 
dering her to marry the young man. 1 He was much in- 
clined to determine causes in favour of the parties who 
appeared, against those who did not, without inquiring 
whether their absence was occasioned by their own fault, 
or by real necessity. On proclamation of a man's being 
convicted of forgery, and that he ought to have his hand 
cut off, he insisted that an executioner should be imme- 
diately sent for, with a Spanish sword and a block. A 
person being prosecuted for falsely assuming the freedom 
of Rome, and a frivolous dispute arising between the ad- 
vocates in the cause, whether he ought to make his 
appearance in the Roman or Grecian dress, to show his 
impartiality, he commanded him to change his clothes 
several times according to the character he assumed in 
the accusation or defence. An anecdote is related of 
him, and believed to be true, that, in a particular cause, 
he delivered his sentence in writing thus : " I am in favour 
of those who have spoken the truth." 2 By this he so 
much forfeited the good opinion of the world, that he was 
everywhere and openly despised. A person making an 
excuse for the non-appearance of a witness whom he had 
sent for from the provinces, declared it was impossible for 
him to appear, concealing the reason for some time : at 
last, after several interrogatories were put to him on the 
subject, he answered, " The man is dead ; " to which 
Claudius replied, "I think that is a sufficient excuse." 

1 This reminds us of the decision of Solomon in the case of the two 
mothers, who each claimed a child as their own, i Kings iii. 22 — 27. 

2 A most absurd judicial conclusion, the business of the judge or 
court being to decide, on weighing the evidence, on which side the 
truth pieponderated. 



CLAUDIUS. 311 

Another thanking him for suffering a person who was 
prosecuted to make his defence by counsel, added, " And 
yet it is no more than what is usual." I have likewise 
heard some old men say, 1 that the advocates used to 
abuse his patience so grossly, that they would not only 
call him back, as he was quitting the tribunal, but would 
seize him by the lap of his coat, and sometimes catch him 
by the heels, to make him stay. That such behaviour, 
however strange, is not incredible, will appear from this 
anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was a litigant, had 
an altercation with him, in which he called out, " You are 
an old fool." 2 It is certain that a Roman knight, who was 
prosecuted by an impotent device of his enemies on a 
false charge of abominable obscenity with women, obser- 
ving that common strumpets were summoned against him 
and allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in very 
harsh and severe terms with his folly and cruelty, and 
threw his style, and some books which he had in his 
hands, in his face, with such violence as to wound him se- 
verely in the cheek. 

XVI. He likewise assumed the censorship, 3 which had 
been discontinued since the time that Paulus and Plancus 
had jointly held it. But this also he administered very 
unequally, and with a strange variety of humour and 
conduct. In his review of the knights, he passed over, 
without any mark of disgrace, a profligate young man, 
only because his father spoke of him in the highest 
terms ; " for," said he, " his father is his proper censor." 
Another, who was infamous for debauching youths and 

1 See the note in Caligula, c. xix., as to Suetonius's sources of in- 
formation from persons cotemporary with the occurrences he relates. 

2 The insult was conveyed in Greek, which seems, from Suetonius, to 
have been in very common use at Rome : xac <rb yipcuv eH f zai fiatpoq. 

3 a. u. c. 798, or 800. 



3 i2 SUETONIUS. 

for adultery, he only admonished "to indulge his youthful 
inclinations more sparingly, or at least more cautiously ;' n 
adding, "why must I know what mistress you keep?" 
When, at the request of his friends, he had taken off a 
mark of infamy which he had set upon one knight's name, 
he said, " Let the blot, however, remain." He not only 
struck out of the list of judges, but likewise deprived of 
the freedom of Rome, an illustrious man of the highest 
provincial rank in Greece, only because he was ignorant 
of the Latin language. Nor in this review did he suffer 
any one to give an account of his conduct by an advocate, 
but obliged each man to speak for himself in the best way 
he could. He disgraced many, and some that little ex- 
pected it, and for a reason entirely new, namely, for going 
out of Italy without his license ; and one likewise, for 
having in his province, been the familiar companion of a 
king ; observing, that, in former times, Rabirius Posthu- 
mus had been prosecuted for treason, although he only 
went after Ptolemy to Alexandria for the purpose of se- 
curing payment of a debt. 2 Having tried to brand with 
disgrace several others, he, to his own greater shame, 
found them generally innocent, through the negligence of 
the persons employed to inquire into their characters ; 
those whom he charged with living in celibacy, with want 
of children, or estate, proving themselves to be husbands, 
parents, and in affluent circumstances. One of the knights 
who was charged with stabbing himself, laid his bosom 
bare, to show that there was not the least mark of vio- 
lence upon his body. The following incidents were re- 
markable in his censorship. He ordered a car, plated 

1 There was a proverb to the same effect : " Si non caste, saltern caute." 

2 Ptolemy appointed him to an office which led him to assume a for- 
eign dress. Rabirius was defended by Cicero in one of his orations, 
which is extant. 



CLAUDIUS. 313 

with silver, and of very sumptuous workmanship, which 
was exposed for sale in the Sigillaria, 1 to be purchased, 
and broken in pieces before his eyes. He published 
twenty proclamations in one day, in one of which he ad- 
vised the people, "Since the vintage was very plentiful, to 
have their casks well secured at the bung with pitch :" and 
in another, he told them, " that nothing would sooner cure 
the bite of a viper, than the sap of the yew-tree." 

XVII. He undertook only one expedition, and that was 
of short duration. The triumphal ornaments decreed him 
by the senate, he considered as beneath the imperial dig- 
nity, and was therefore resolved to have the honour of a 
real triumph. For this purpose, he selected Britain, which 
had never been attempted by any one since Julius Caesar, 2 

1 The Sigillaria was a street in Rome, where a fair was held after the 
Saturnalia, which lasted seven days ; and toys, consisting of little ima- 
ges and dolls, which gave their names to the street and festival, were 
sold. It appears from the text, that other articles were exposed for 
sale in this street. Among these were included elegant vases of silver 
and bronze. There appears also to have been a bookseller's shop, for 
an ancient writer tells us that a friend of his showed him a copy of the 
Second Book of the ^Eneid, which he had purchased there. 

2 Opposed to this statement there is a passage in Servius Georgius, iii. 
33, asserting that he had heard (accipimus) that Augustus, besides his 
victories in the east, triumphed over the Britons in the west ; and Ho- 
race says: — 

Augustus adjectis Britannis 

Imperio gravibusque Persis. — Ode iii. 5, 1. 

Strabo likewise informs us, that in his time, the petty British kings sent 
embassies to cultivate the alliance of Augustus, and make offerings in 
the Capitol : and that nearly the whole island was on terms of amity 
with the Romans, and, as well as the Gauls, paid a light tribute. — Strabo, 
B. iv. p. 138. 

That Augustus contemplated a descent on the island, but was pre- 
vented from attempting it by his being recalled from Gaul by the dis- 
turbances in Dalmatia, is very probable. Horace offers his vows for its 
success : 



314 SUETONIUS. 

and was then chafing with rage, because the Romans would 
not give up some deserters. Accordingly, he set sail from 
Ostia, but was twice very near being wrecked by the 
boisterous wind called Circius, 1 upon the coast of Ligu- 
ria, near the islands called Stcechades. 2 Having marched 
by land from Marseilles to Gessoriacum, 3 he thence passed 
over to Britain, and part of the island submitting to him, 
within a few days after his arrival, without battle or blood- 
shed, he returned to Rome in less than six months from 
the time of his departure, and triumphed in the most sol- 
emn manner ; 4 to witness which, he not only gave leave to 

Serves iturum, Caesarum in ultimos 
Orbis Britannos. — Ode i. 35. 

But the word iturus shews that the scheme was only projected, and the 
lines previously quoted are mere poetical flattery. Strabo's statement 
of the communications kept up with the petty kings of Britain, who 
were perhaps divided by intestine wars, are, to a certain extent, pro- 
bably correct, as such a policy would be a prelude to the intended ex- 
pedition. 

1 Circius. Aulus Gellius, Seneca, and Pliny, mention under this name 
the strong southerly gales which prevail in the gulf of Genoa and the 
neighbouring seas. 

2 The Stcechades were the islands now called Hieres, off Toulon. 

3 Claudius must have expended more time in his march from Mar- 
seilles to Gessoriacum, as Boulogne was then called, than in his vaunted 
conquest of Britain. 

4 In point of fact, he was only sixteen days in the island, receiving 
the submission of some tribes in the south-eastern districts. But the 
way had been prepared for him by his able general, Aulus Plautius, who 
defeated Cunobeline, and made himself master of his capital, Camulo- 
dunum, or Colchester. These successes were followed up by Ostorius, 
who conquered Caractacus and sent him to Rome. 

It is singular that Suetonius has supplied us with no particulars of 
these events. Some account of them is given in the disquisition ap- 
pended to this life of Caligula. 

The expedition of Plautius took place a. u. c. 796, a. d. 44. 



CLAUDIUS. 315 

governors of provinces to come to Rome, but even to 
some of the exiles. Among the spoils taken from the 
enemy, he fixed upon the pediment of his house in the 
Palatium, a naval crown, in token of his having passed, 
and, as it were, conquered the Ocean, and had it sus- 
pended near the civic crown which was there before. 
Messalina, his wife, followed his chariot in a covered 
litter. 1 Those who had attained the honour of triumphal 
ornaments in the same war, rode behind ; the rest fol- 
lowed on foot, wearing the robe with the broad stripes. 
Crassus Frugi was mounted upon a horse richly capari- 
soned, in a robe embroidered with palm leaves, because 
this was the second time of his obtaining that honour. 

XVIII. He paid particular attention to the care of the 
city, and to have it well supplied with provisions. A 
dreadful fire happening in the v^Emiliana, 2 which lasted 
some time, he passed two nights in the Diribitorium, 3 and 
the soldiers and gladiators not being in sufficient num- 
bers to extinguish it, he caused the magistrates to sum- 
mon the people out of all the streets in the city, to their 
assistance. Placing bags of money before him, he en- 
couraged them to do their utmost, declaring, that he would 
reward every one on the spot, according to their exertions. 

1 Carpentum : see note in Caligula, c. xv. 

2 The ^Emiliana, so called because it contained the monuments of 
the family of that name, was a suburb of Rome, on the Via Lata, out- 
side the gate. 

3 The Diribitorium was a house in the Flaminian Circus, begun by 
Agrippa, and finished by Augustus, in which soldiers were mustered and 
their pay distributed ; from whence it derived its name. When the 
Romans went to give their votes at the election of magistrates, they 
were conducted by officers named Diribitores. It is possible that one 
and the same building may have been used for both purposes. 

The Flaminian Circus was without the city walls, in the Campus Mar- 
tius. The Roman college now stands on its site. 



3 i6 SUETONIUS. 

XIX. During a scarcity of provisions, occasioned by 
bad crops for several successive years, he was stopped in 
the middle of the forum by the mob, who so abused him, 
at the same time pelting him with fragments of bread, 
that he had some difficulty in escaping into the palace 

I by a back door. He therefore used all possible means 
to bring provisions to the city, even in winter. He pro- 

| posed to ? the merchants a sure profit, by indemnifying 
them against any loss that might befall them by storms at 
sea ; and granted great privileges to those who built ships 
for that traffic. To a citizen of Rome he gave an ex- 
emption from the penalty of the Papia-Poppaean law ; T to 
one who had only the privilege of Latium, the freedom of 
the city ; and to women the rights which by law belonged 
to those who had four children : which enactments are in 
force to this day. 

XX. He completed some important public works, 
which, though, not numerous, were very useful. The 
principal were an aqueduct, which had been begun by 
Caius ; an emissary for the discharge of the waters of the 
Fucine lake, 2 and the harbour of Ostia ; although he knew 
that Augustus had refused to comply with the repeated 
application of the Marsians for one of these ; and that 
the other had been several times intended by Julius Cae- 
sar, but as often abandoned on account of the difficulty of 
its execution. He brought to the city the cool and plen- 
tiful springs of the Claudian water, one of which is called 

1 A law brought in by the consuls Papius Mutilus and Quintus Pop- 
pseus ; respecting which, see Augustus, c. xxxiv. 

2 The Fucine Lake is now called Lago di Celano, in the' Farther Ab- 
ruzzi. It is very extensive, but shallow, so that the difficulty of con- 
structing the Claudian emissary, can scarcely be compared to that en- 
countered in a similar work for lowering the level of the waters in the 
Alban lake, completed a. u. c. 359. 



CLAUDIUS. 



3 r 7 



Caeruleus, and the other Curtius and Albudinus, as like- 
wise the river of the New Anio, in a stone canal; and distri- 
buted them into many magnificent reservoirs. The canal 
from the Fucine lake was undertaken as much for the 
sake of profit, as for the honour of the enterprise ; for 
there were parties who offered to drain it at their own ex- 
pense, on condition of their having a grant of the land 
laid dry. With great difficulty he completed a canal three 
miles in length, partly by cutting through, and partly by 
tunnelling, a mountain ; thirty thousand men being con- 
stantly employed in the work for eleven years. 1 He 
formed the harbour at Ostia, by carrying out circular 
piers on the right and on the left, with a mole protecting, 
in deep water, the entrance of the port. 2 To secure the 
foundation of this mole, he sunk the vessel in which the 
great obelisk 3 had been brought from Egypt ; 4 and built 

1 Respecting the Claudian aqueduct, see Caligula, c. xxi. 

2 Ostia is referred to in a note, Tiberius, c. xi. 

3 Suetonius calls this "the great obelisk" in comparison with those 
which Augustus had placed in the Circus Maximus and Campus Mar- 
tius. The one here mentioned was erected by Caligula in his Circus, 
afterwards called the Circus of Nero. It stood at Heliopolis, having 
been dedicated to the sun, as Herodotus informs us, by Phero, son of 
Sesostris, in acknowledgment of his recovery from blindness. It was 
removed by Pope Sixtus V. in 1586, under the celebrated architect, 
Fontana, to the centre of the area before St. Peter's, in the Vatican, 
not far from its former position. This obelisk is a solid piece of red 
granite, without hieroglyphics, and, with the pedestal and ornaments at 
the top, is 182 feet high. The height of the obelisk itself is 113 palms, 
or 84 feet. 

* Pliny relates some curious particulars of this ship: — "A fir tree of 
prodigious size was used in the vessel which, by the command of Cali- 
gula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Cir- 
cus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing 
certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel ; 
120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast ; the length of it nearly 



3 i8 SUETONIUS. 

upon piles a very lofty tower, in imitation of the Pharos 
at Alexandria, on which lights were burnt to direct mari- 
ners in the night. 

XXI. He often distributed largesses of corn and money 
among the people, and entertained them with a great va- 
riety of public magnificent spectacles, not only such as 
were usual, and in the accustomed places, but some of 
new invention, and others revived from ancient models, 
and exhibited in places where nothing of the kind had 
been ever before attempted. In the games which he pre- 
sented at the dedication of Pompey's theatre, 1 which had 
been burnt down, and was rebuilt by him, he presided 
upon a tribunal erected for him in the orchestra ; having 
first paid his devotions, in the temple above, and. then 
coming down through the centre of the circle, while all 
the people kept their seats in profound silence. 2 He like- 
wise exhibited the secular games, 3 giving out that Augus- 
tus had anticipated the regular period ; though he himself 
says in his history, " That they had been omitted before 
the age of Augustus, who had calculated the years with 
great exactness, and again brought them to their regular 
period. , ' 4 The crier was therefore ridiculed, when he in- 
vited people in the usual form, " to games which no per- 
son had ever before seen, nor ever would again ; " when 

equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia ; for it was sent there by 
the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four 
men could embrace with their arms." — B. xvi. c. 76. 

1 See Augustus, c. xxxi. It appears to have been often a prey to the 
flames, Tiberius, c. xli ; Caligula, c. xx. 

2 Contrary to the usual custom of rising and saluting the emperor 
with loud acclamations. 

3 a. u. c. 800. 

* The Secular Games had been celebrated by Augustus, a. u. c. 736. 
See c. xxxi. of his life, and the Epode of Horace written on the occa- 
sion. 



CLAUDIUS. 319 

many were still living who had already seen diem ; and 
some of the performers who had formerly acted in them, 
were now again brought upon the stage. He likewise 
frequently celebrated the Circensian games in the Vati- 
can, 1 sometimes exhibiting a hunt of wild beasts, after 
every five courses. He embellished the Circus Maximus 
with marble barriers, and gilded goals, which before were 
of common stone 2 and wood, and assigned proper places 
for the senators, who were used to sit promiscuously with 
the other spectators. Besides the chariot-races, he exhi- 
bited there the Trojan game, and wild beasts from Africa, 
which were encountered by a troop of pretorian knights, 
with their tribunes, and even the prefect at the head of 
them ; besides Thessalian horse, who drive fierce bulls 
round the circus, leap upon their backs when they have 
exhausted their fury, and drag them by the horns to the 
ground. He gave exhibitions of gladiators in several 
places, and of various kinds ; one yearly on the anniver- 
sary of his accession in the pretorian camp, 3 but without 
any hunting, or the usual apparatus ; another in the Septa 
as usual ; and in the same place, another out of the com- 
mon way, and of a few days' continuance only, which he 
called Sportula ; because when he was going to present 
it, he informed the people by proclamation, " that he in- 
vited them to a late supper, got up in haste, and without 
ceremony." Nor did he lend himself to any kind of pub- 
lic diversion with more freedom and hilarity ; insomuch 
that he would hold out his left hand, and joined by the 

1 In the circus which he had himself built. t 

2 Tophina; Tuffo, a porous stone of volcanic origin, which abounds 
in the neighbourhood of Rome, and, with the Travartino, is employed 
in all common buildings. 

3 In compliment to the troops to whom he owed his elevation : see 
before, c. xi. 



32o SUETONIUS. 

common people, count upon his fingers aloud the gold 
pieces presented to those who came off conquerors. He 
would earnestly invite the company to be merry ; some- 
times calling them his " masters," with a mixture of in- 
sipid, far-fetched jests. Thus when the people called for 
Palumbus, 1 he said, "He would give them one when he 
could catch it." The following was well-intended and 
well-timed ; having, amidst great applause, spared a gla- 
diator, on the intercession of his four sons, he sent a billet 
immediately round the theatre, to remind the people, 
" how much it behooved them to get children, since they 
had before them an example how useful they had been in 
procuring favour and security for a gladiator." He like- 
wise represented in the Campus Martius, the assault and 
sacking of a town, and the surrender of the British 
kings, 2 presiding in his general's cloak. Immediately be- 
fore he drew off the waters from the Fucine lake, he 
exhibited upon it a naval fight. But the combatants 
on board the fleets crying out, " Health attend you, noble 
emperor ! We, who are about to peril our lives, salute 
you ; " and he replying, " Health attend you too," they all 
refused to fight, as if by that response he had meant to 
excuse them. Upon this, he hesitated for a time, whether 
he should not destroy them all with fire and sword. At 
last, leaping from his seat, and running along the shore of 
the lake with tottering steps, the result of his foul ex- 
cesses, he, partly by fair words, and partly by threats, 
persuaded them to engage. This spectacle represented 
an engagement between the fleets of Sicily and Rhodes ; 
Consisting each of twelve ships of war, of three banks of 
oars. The signal for the encounter was given by a silver 

1 Palumbus was a gladiator : and Claudius condescended to pun upon 
his name, which signifies a wood-pigeon. 

2 See before, c. xvii. Described in c. xx. and note. 



$ 




ft 



A GRIP PIIA 



■ 



CLAUDIUS. 321 

Triton, raised by machinery from the middle of the 
lake. 

XXII. With regard to religious ceremonies, the admin- 
istration of affairs both civil and military, and the condi- 
tion of all orders of the people at home and abroad, some 
practices he corrected, others which had been laid aside 
he revived ; and some regulations he introduced which 
were entirely new. In appointing new priests for the 
several colleges, he made no appointments without being 
sworn. When an earthquake happened in the city, he 
never failed to summon the people together by the prae- 
tor, and appoint holidays for sacred rites. And upon the 
sight of any ominous bird in the City or Capitol, he issued 
an order for a supplication, the words of which, by virtue 
of his office of high-priest, after an exhortation from the 
rostra, he recited in the presence of the people, who re- 
peated them after him ; all workmen and slaves being 
first ordered to withdraw. 

XXIII. The courts of judicature, whose sittings had 
been formerly divided between the summer and winter 
months, he ordered, for the dispatch of business, to sit the 
whole year round. The jurisdiction in matters of trust, 
which used to be granted annually by special commission 
to certain magistrates, and in the city only, he made per- 
manent, and extended to the provincial judges likewise. 
He altered a clause added by Tiberius to the Papia-Pop- 
paean law, 1 which inferred that men of sixty years of age 
were incapable of begetting children. He ordered that, out 
of the ordinary course of proceeding, orphans might have 
guardians appointed them by the consuls ; and that those 
who were banished from any province by the chief magis- 
trate, should be debarred from coming into the City, or 
any part of Italy. He inflicted on certain persons a new 

1 See before, Augustus, c. xxxiv. 



322 SUETONIUS. 

sort of banishment, by forbidding them to depart further 
than three miles from Rome. When any affair of im- 
portance came before the senate, he used to sit between 
the two consuls upon the seats of the tribunes. He re- 
served to himself the power of granting license to travel 
out of Italy, which before had belonged to the senate. 

XXIV. He likewise granted the consular ornaments to 
his Ducenarian procurators. From those who declined 
the senatorian dignity, he took away the equestrian. Al- 
though he had in the beginning of his reign declared, 
that he would admit no man into the senate who was not 
the great-grandson of a Roman citizen, yet he gave the 
"broad hem" to the son of a freedman, on condition that 
he should be adopted by a Roman knight. Being afraid, 
however, of incurring censure by such an act, he informed 
the public, that his ancestor Appius Caecus, the censor, 
had elected the sons of freedmen into the senate; for he 
was ignorant, it seems, that in the times of Appius, and a 
long while afterwards, persons manumitted were not called 
freedmen, but only their sons who were free-born. Instead 
of the expense which the college of quaestors was obliged 
to incur in paving the high-ways, he ordered them to give 
the people an exhibition of gladiators ; and relieving them 
of the provinces of Ostia and [Cisalpine] Gaul, he rein- 
stated them in the charge of the treasury, which, since it 
was taken from them, had been managed by the praetors, 
or those who had formerly filled that office. He gave the 
triumphal ornaments to Silanus, who was betrothed to his 
daughter, though he was under age ; and in other cases, 
he bestowed them on so many, and with so little reserve, 
that there is extant a letter unanimously addressed to him 
by all the legions, begging him " to grant his consular lieu- 
tenants the triumphal ornaments at the time of their ap- 
pointment to commands, in order to prevent their seeking 



CLAUDIUS. 323 

occasion to engage in unnecessary wars." He decreed to 
Aulus Plautius the honour of an ovation, 1 going to meet 
him at his entering the city, and walking with him in the 
procession to the Capitol, and back, in which he took the 
left side, giving him the post of honour. He allowed 
Gabinius Secundus, upon his conquest of the Chauci, a 
German tribe, to assume the cognomen of Chaucius. 2 

XXV. His military organization of the equestrian order 
was this. After having the command of a cohort, they 
were promoted to a wing of auxiliary horse, and subse- 
quently received the commission of tribune of a legion. 
He raised a body of militia, who were called Supernu- 
meraries, who, though they were a sort of soldiers, and 
kept in reserve, yet received pay. He procured an act 
of the senate to prohibit all soldiers from attending sena- 
tors at their houses, in the way of respect and compli- 
ment. He confiscated the estates of all freedmen who 
presumed to take upon themselves the equestrian rank. 
Such of them as were ungrateful to their patrons, and 
were complained of by them, he reduced to their former 
condition of slavery; and declared to their advocates, 
that he would always give judgment against the freed- 
men, in any suit at law which the masters might happen 
to have with them. Some persons having exposed their 
sick slaves, in a languishing condition, on the island of 
^Esculapius, 3 because of the tediousness of their cure ; he 

1 To reward his able services as commander of the army in Britain. 
See before, c. xvii. 

2 German tribes between the Elbe and the Weser, whose chief seat 
was at Bremen, and others about Ems or Luneburg. 

3 This island in the Tiber, opposite the Campus Martius, is said to 
have been formed by the corn sown by Tarquin the Proud on that con- 
secrated field, and cut down and thrown by order of the consuls into 
the river. The water being low, it lodged in the bed of the stream, 
and gradual deposits of mud raising it above the level of the water, it 



324 SUETONIUS. 

declared all who were so exposed perfectly free, never 
more to return, if they should recover, to their former 
servitude ; and that if any one chose to kill at once, 
rather than expose, a slave, he should be liable for mur- 
der. He published a proclamation, forbidding all travel- 
lers to pass through the towns of Italy any otherwise than 
on foot, or in a litter or chair. 1 He quartered a cohort of 
soldiers at Puteoli, and another at Ostia, to be in readi- 
ness against any accidents from fire. He prohibited for- 
eigners from adopting Roman names, especially those 
which belonged to families. 2 Those who falsely pretended 
to the freedom of Rome, he heheaded on the Esquiline. 
He gave up to the senate the provinces of Achaia and 
Macedonia, which Tiberius had transferred to his own 
administration. He deprived the Lycians of their liber- 
ties, as a punishment for their fatal dissensions ; but re- 
stored to the Rhodians their freedom, upon their repent- 
ing of their former misdemeanors. He exonerated for 
ever the people of Ilium from the payment of taxes, as 
being the founders of the Roman race ; reciting upon the 
occasion a letter in Greek, from the senate and people of 

was in course of time covered with buildings. Among these was the 
temple of ^Esculapius, erected A. u. c. 462, to receive the serpent, the 
emblem of that deity which was brought to Rome in the time of a 
plague. There is a coin of Antoninus Pius recording this event, and 
Lumisdus has preserved copies of some curious votive inscriptions in 
acknowledgment of cures which were found in its ruins, Antiquities of 
Rome, p. 379. 

It was common for the patient after having been exposed some nights 
in the temple, without being cured, to depart and put an end to his 
life. Suetonius here informs us that slaves so exposed, at last obtained 
their freedom. 

1 Which were carried on the shoulders of slaves. This prohibition 
had for its object either to save the wear and tear in the narrow streets, 
or to pay respect to the liberties of the town. 

2 See the note in c. i. of this life of Claudius. 



CLAUDIUS. 325 

Rome to king Seleucus, 1 on which they promised him 
their friendship and alliance, provided that he would grant 
their kinsmen the Iliensians immunity from all burdens. 

He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were contin- 
ually making disturbances at the instigation of one 
Chrestus. 2 He allowed the ambassadors of the Germans 
to sit at the public spectacles in the seats assigned to the 
senators, being induced to grant them favours by their 
frank and honourable conduct. For, having been seated 
in the rows of benches which were common to the peo- 
ple, on observing the Parthian and Armenian ambassa- 
dors sitting among the senators, they took upon them- 
selves to cross over into the same seats, as being, they 

1 Seleucus Philopater, son of Antiochus the Great, who being con- 
quered by the Romans, the succeeding kings of Syria acknowledged 
the supremacy of Rome. 

2 Suetonius has already, in Tiberius, c. xxxvi., mentioned the expul- 
sion of the Jews from Rome, and this passage confirms the conjecture, 
offered in the note, that the Christians were obscurely alluded to in the 
former notice. The antagonism between Christianity and Judaism ap- 
pears to have given rise to the tumults which first led the authorities to 
interfere. Thus much we seem to learn from both passages : but the 
most enlightened men of that age were singularly ill-informed on the 
stupendous events which had recently occurred in Judea, and we find 
Suetonius, although he lived at the commencement of the first cen- 
tury of the Christian sera, when the memory of these occurrences was 
still fresh, and it might be supposed, by that time, widely diffused, 
transplanting Christ from Jerusalem to Rome, and placing him in the 
time of Claudius, although the crucifixion took place during the reign 
of Tiberius. 

St. Luke, Acts xviii. 2, mentions the expulsion of the Jews from 
Rome by the emperor Claudius : Dio, however, says that he did not 
expel them, but only forbad their religious assemblies. 

It was very natural for Suetonius to write Chrestus instead of Chris- 
tus, as the former was a name in use among the Greeks and Romans. 
Among others, Cicero mentions a person of that name in his Fam. Ep, 
11. 8. 



326 SUETONIUS. 

said, no way inferior to the others, in point either of merit 
or rank. The religious rites of the Druids, solemnized 
with such horrid cruelties, which had only been forbidden 
the citizens of Rome during the reign of Augustus, he 
utterly abolished among the Gauls. 1 On the other hand, 
he attempted to transfer the Eleusinian mysteries from 
Attica to Rome. 2 He likewise ordered the temple of 
Venus Erycina in Sicily, which was old and in a ruinous 
condition, to be repaired at the expense of the Roman 
people. He concluded treaties with foreign princes in 
the forum, with the sacrifice of a sow, and the form of 
words used by the heralds in former times, But in these 
and other things, and indeed the greater part of his ad- 
ministration, he was directed not so much by his own 
judgment, as by the influence of his wives and freedmen ; 
for the most part acting in conformity to what their inter- 
ests or fancies dictated. 

XXVI. He was twice married at a very early age, first 
to ^Emilia Lepida, the grand-daughter of Augustus, and 
afterwards to Livia Medullina, who had the cognomen of 
Camilla, and was descended from the old dictator Camil^ 
lus. The former he divorced while still a virgin, because 
her parents had incurred the displeasure of Augustus ; and 
he lost the latter by sickness on the day fixed for their 
nuptials. He next married Plautia Urgulanilla, whose 
father had enjoyed the honour of a triumph ; and soon 
afterwards, ^Elia Paetina, the daughter of a man of con- 

1 Pliny tells us that Druidism had its origin in Gaul, and was trans- 
planted into Britain, xxi. i. Julius Caesar asserts just the contrary, 
Bell. Gall. vi. 13, 11. The edict of Claudius was not carried into ef- 
fect ; at least, we find vestiges of Druidism in Gaul, during the reigns 
of Nero and Alexander Severus. 

2 The Eleusinian mysteries were never transferred from Athens to 
Rome, notwithstanding this attempt of Claudius, and although Aure- 
lius Victor says that Adrian effected it. 



CLAUDIUS. 327 

sular rank. But he divorced them both; Paetina, upon 
some trifling cause of disgust ; and Urgulanilla, for scan- 
dalous lewdness, and the suspicion of murder. After 
them he took in marriage Valeria Messalina, the daughter 
of Barbatus Messala, his cousin. But finding that, be- 
sides her other shameful debaucheries, she had even gone 
so far as to marry in his own absence Caius Silius, the 
settlement of her dowry being formally signed, in the 
presence of the augurs, he put her to death. When 
summoning his pretorians to his presence, he made to 
them this declaration: "As I have been so unhappy in 
my unions, I am resolved to continue in future unmar- 
ried ; and if I should not, I give you leave to stab me." 
He was, however, unable to persist in this resolution ; for 
he began immediately to think of another wife ; and even 
of taking back Paetina, whom he had formerly divorced : 
he thought also of Lollia Paulina, who had been mar- 
ried to Caius Caesar. But being ensnared by the arts 
of Agrippina, the daughter of his brother German- 
icus, who took advantage of the kisses and endear- 
ments which their near relationship admitted, to inflame 
his desires, he got some one to propose at the next meet- 
ing of the senate, that they should oblige the emperor to 
marry Agrippina, as a measure highly conducive to the 
public interest ; and that in future liberty should be given 
for such marriages, which until that time had been consi- 
dered incestuous. In less than twenty-four hours after 
this, he married her. 1 No person was found, however, to 
follow the example, excepting one freedman, and a centu- 
rion of the first rank, at the solemnization of whose nup- 
tials both he and Agrippina attended. 

XXVII. He had children by three of his wives ; by 
Urgulanilla, Drusus and Claudia ; by Paetina, Antonia ; 

1 A. U. C. 801. 



328 SUETONIUS. 

and by Messalina, Octavia, and also a son, whom at first 
he called Germanicus, but afterwards Britannicus. He 
lost Drusus at Pompeii, when he was very young-; he 
being choked with a pear, which in his play he tossed into 
the air, and caught in his mouth. Only a few days be- 
fore, he had betrothed him to one of Sejanus's daughters ; ! 
and I am therefore surprised that some authors should 
say he lost his life by the treachery of Sejanus. Claudia, 
who was, in truth, the daughter of Boter his freedman, 
though she was born five months before his divorce, he 
ordered to be thrown naked at her mother's door. He 
married Antonia to Cneius Pompey the Great, 2 and after- 
wards to Faustus Sylla, 3 both youths of very noble par- 
entage; Octavia to his step-son Nero, 4 after she had been 
contracted to Silanus. Britannicus was born upon the 
twentieth day of his reign, and in his second consulship. 
He often earnestly commended him to the soldiers, hold- 
ing him in his arms before their ranks ; and would like- 
wise show him to the people in the theatre, setting him 
upon his lap, or holding him out whilst he was still very 
young ; and was sure to receive their acclamations, and 
good wishes on his behalf. Of his sons-in-law, he adopt- 
ed Nero. He not only dismissed from his favour both 
Pompey and Silanus, but put them to death. 

XXVIII. Amongst his freedmen, the greatest favourite 
was the eunuch Posides, whom, in his British triumph, he 
presented with the pointless spear, classing him among 
the military men. Next to him, if not equal, in favour 
was Felix, 5 whom he not only preferred to commands 

1 a. u. c. 773. 

2 It would seem from this passage, that the cognomen of " the Great," 
had now been restored to the descendants of Cneius Pompey, on whom 
it was first conferred. 

3 a. u. c. 806. *a. u. c. 803. 

5 This is the Felix mentioned in the Acts, cc. xxiii., and xxiv., before 



CLAUDIUS. 329 

both of cohorts and troops, but to the government of the 
province of Judea ; and he became, in consequence of 
his elevation, the husband of three queens. 1 Another 
favourite was Harpocras, to whom he granted the priv- 
ilege of being carried in a litter within the city, and of 
holding public spectacles for the entertainment of the 
people. In this class was likewise Polybius, who assisted 
him in his studies, and had often the honour of walking 
between the two consuls. But above all others, Narcis- 
sus, his secretary, and Pallas, 2 the comptroller of his ac- 
counts, were in high favour with him. He not only allowed 
them to receive, by decree of the senate, immense pres- 
ents, but also to be decorated with the qusestorian and 
praetorian ensigns of honour. So much did he indulge 
them in amassing wealth, and plundering the public, that, 
upon his complaining, once, of the lowness of his exche- 
quer, some one said, with great reason, that " It would be. 
full enough, if those two freedmen of his would but take 
him into partnership with them." 

XXIX. Being entirely governed by these freedmen, 
and, as I have already said, by his wives, he was a tool to 
others, rather than a prince. He distributed offices, or 
the command of armies, pardoned or punished, according 
as it suited their interests, their passions, or their caprice ; 
and for the most part, without knowing, or being sensible 

whom St. Paul pleaded. He is mentioned by Josephus; and Tacitus, 
who calls him Felix Antonius, gives his character : Annal. v. 9. 6. 

1 It appears that two of these wives of Felix were named Drusilla. 
One, mentioned Acts xxiv. 24, and there called a Jewess, was the sister 
of king Agrippa, and had married before, Azizus, king of the Emes- 
senes. The other Drusilla, though not a queen, was of royal birth, 
being the grand-daughter of Cleopatra by Mark Antony. Who the 
third wife of Felix was, is unknown. 

2 Tacitus and Josephus mention that Pallas was the brother of Felix, 
and the younger Pliny ridicules the pompous inscription on his tomb. 



330 SUETONIUS. 

of what he did. Not to enter into minute details relative 
to the revocation of grants, the reversal of judicial decis- 
ions, obtaining his signature to fictitious appointments, or 
the bare-faced alteration of them after signing ; he put to 
death Appius Silanus l the father of his son-in-law, and the 
two Julias, the daughters of Drusus and Germanicus, with- 
out any positive proof of the crimes with which they were 
charged, or so much as permitting them to make any de- 
fence. He also cut oft Cneius Pompey, the husband of 
his eldest daughter; and Lucius Silanus, who was be- 
trothed to the younger Pompey, was stabbed in the act of 
unnatural lewdness with a favourite paramour. Silanus 
was obliged to quit the office of praetor upon the fourth 
of the calends of January [29th Dec], and to kill himself 
on new year's day 1 following, the very same on which 
Claudius and Agrippina were married. He condemned 
to death five and thirty senators, and above three hundred 
Roman knights, with so little attention to what he did, 
that when a centurion brought him word of the execution 
of a man of consular rank, who was one of the number, 
and told him that he had executed his order, he declared, 
" he had ordered no such thing, but that he approved of 
it ;" because his freedmen, it seems, had said, that the 
soldiers did nothing more than their duty, in dispatching 
the emperor's enemies without waiting for a warrant. 
But it is beyond all belief, that he himself, at the marriage 
of Messalina with the adulterous Silius, should actually 
sign the writings relative to her dowry ; induced, as it is 
pretended, by the design of diverting from himself and 
transferring upon another the danger which some omens 
seemed to threaten him. 

XXX, Either standing or sitting, but especially when 
he lay asleep, he had a majestic and graceful appearance ; 

1 a. u. c. 802. 



CLAUDIUS. 331 

for he was tall, but not slender. His grey locks became 
him well, and he had a full neck. But his knees were 
feeble, and failed him in walking, so that his gait was 
ungainly, both when he assumed state, and when he was 
taking diversion. He was outrageous in his laughter, 
and still more so in his wrath, for then he foamed at the 
mouth, and discharged from his nostrils. He also stam- 
mered in his speech, and had a tremulous motion of the 
head at all times, but particularly when he was engaged 
in any business, however trifling. 

XXXI. Though his health was very infirm during the 
former part of his life, yet, after he became emperor, he 
enjoyed a good state of health, except only that he was 
subject to a pain of the stomach. In a fit of this com- 
plaint, he said he had thoughts of killing himself. 

XXXII. He gave entertainments as frequent as they 
were splendid, and generally when there was such ample 
room, that very often six hundred guests sat down toge- 
ther. At a feast he gave on the banks of the canal for 
draining the Fucine Lake, he narrowly escaped being 
drowned, the water at its discharge rushing out with such 
violence, that it overflowed the conduit. At supper he had 
always his own children, with those of several of the no- 
bility, who, according to an ancient custom, sat at the feet 
of the couches. One of his guests having been suspected 
of purloining a golden cup, he invited him again the next 
day, but served him with a porcelain jug. It is said, too, 
that he intended to publish an edict, " allowing to all peo- 
ple the liberty of giving vent at table to any distension 
occasioned by flatulence," upon hearing of a person 
whose modesty, when under restraint, had nearly cost him 
his life. 

XXXIII. He was always ready to eat and drink at any 
time or in any place. One day, as he was hearing causes 



332 SUETONIUS. 

in the forum of Augustus, he smelt the dinner which was 
preparing for the Salii, 1 in the temple of Mars adjoining, 
whereupon he quitted the tribunal, and went to partake 
of the feast with the priests. He scarcely ever left the 
table until he had thoroughly crammed himself and drank 
to intoxication ; and then he would immediately fall 
asleep, lying upon his back with his mouth open. While 
in this condition, a feather was put down his throat, to 
make him throw up the contents of his stomach. Upon 
composing himself to rest, his sleep was short, and he 
usually awoke before midnight ; but he would sometimes 
sleep in the daytime, and that, even, when he was upon 
the tribunal ; so that the advocates often found it difficult 
to wake him, though they raised their voices for that pur- 
pose. He set no bounds to his libidinous intercourse 
with women, but never betrayed any unnatural desires 
for the other sex. He was fond of gaming, and pub- 
lished a book upon the subject. He even used to play 
as he rode in his chariot, having the tables so fitted, 
that the game was not disturbed by the motion of the 
carriage. 

XXXIV. His cruel and sanguinary disposition was ex- 

1 The Salii, the priests of Mars, twelve in number, were instituted by 
Numa. Their dress was an embroidered tunic, bound with a girdle 
ornamented with brass. They wore on their head a conical cap, of a 
considerable height ; carried a sword by their side ; in their right hand 
a spear or rod, and in their left, one of the Ancilia, or shields of Mars. 
On solemn occasions, they used to go to the Capitol, through the 
forum and other public parts of the city, dancing and singing sacred 
songs, said to have been composed by Numa ; which, in the time of 
Horace, could hardly be understood by any one, even the priests them- 
selves. The most solemn procession of the Salii was on the first of 
March, in commemoration of the time when the sacred shield was be- 
lieved to have fallen from heaven, in the reign of Numa. After their 
procession, they had a splendid entertainment, the luxury of which was 
proverbial. 



CLAUDIUS. 333 

hibited upon great as well as trifling occasions. When 
any person was to be put to the torture, or criminal pun- 
ished for parricide, he was impatient for the execution, 
and would have it performed in his own presence. When 
he was at Tibur, being desirous of seeing an example of 
the old way of putting malefactors to death, some were 
immediately bound to a stake for the purpose ; but there 
being no executioner to be had at the place, he sent for 
one from Rome, and waited for his coming until night. 
In any exhibition of gladiators, presented either by him- 
self or others, if any of the combatants chanced to fall, 
he ordered them to be butchered, especially the Retiarii, 
that he might see their faces in the agonies of death. 
Two gladiators happening to kill each other, he imme- 
diately ordered some little knives to be made of their 
swords for his own use. He took great pleasure in see- 
ing- men engage vvith wild beasts, and the combatants who 
appeared on the stage at noon. He would therefore 
come to the theatre by break of day, and at noon, dismis- 
sing the people to dinner, continued sitting himself; and 
besides those who were devoted to that sanguinary fate, 
he would match others with the beasts, upon slight or 
sudden occasions ; as, for instance, the carpenters and 
their assistants, and people of that sort, if a machine, or 
any piece of work in which they had been employed about 
the theatre did not answer the purpose for which it had 
been intended. To this desperate kind of encounter he 
forced one of his nomenclators, even encumbered as he 
was by wearing the toga. 

XXXV. But the characteristics most predominant in 
him were fear and distrust. In the beginning of his 
reign, though he much affected a modest and humble 
appearance, as has been already observed, yet he durst 
not venture himself at an entertainment without being 



334 SUETONIUS. 

attended by a guard of spearmen, and made soldiers 
wait upon him at table instead of servants. He never 
visited a sick person, until the chamber had been first 
searched, and the bed and bedding thoroughly exam- 
ined. At other times, all persons who came to pay their 
court to him were strictly searched by officers appointed 
for that purpose ; nor was it until after a long time, and 
with much difficulty, that he was prevailed upon to excuse 
women, boys, and girls from such rude handling, or suffer 
their attendants or writing-masters to retain their cases 
for pens and styles. When Camillus formed his plot 
against him, not doubting but his timidity might be 
worked upon without a war, he wrote to him a scurril- 
ous, petulant, and threatening letter, desiring him to resign 
the government, and betake himself to a life of privacy. 
Upon receiving this requisition, he had some thoughts 
of complying with it, and summoned together the princi- 
pal men of the city, to consult with them on the subject. 

XXXVI. Having heard some loose reports of con- 
spiracies formed against him, he was so much alarmed, 
that he thought of immediately abdicating the govern- 
ment. And when, as I have before related, a man armed 
with a dagger was discovered near him while he was sac- 
rificing, he instantly ordered the heralds to convoke the 
senate, and with tears and dismal exclamations, lamented 
that such was his condition, that he was safe no where ; 
and for a long time afterwards he abstained from appear- 
ing in public. He smothered his ardent love for Messa- 
lina, not so much on account of her infamous conduct, as 
from apprehension of danger ; believing that she aspired 
to share with Silius, her partner in adultery, the imperial 
dignity. Upon this occasion he ran in a great fright, and 
a very shameful manner, to the camp, asking all the 
way he went, " if the empire were indeed safely his." 



CLAUDIUS. 335 

XXXVII. No suspicion was too trifling, no person on 
whom it rested too contemptible, to throw him into a 
panic, and induce him to take precautions for his safety, 
and meditate revenge. A man engaged in a litigation 
before his tribunal, having saluted him, drew him aside, 
and told him he had dreamt that he saw him murdered ; 
and shortly afterwards, when his adversary came to deliver 
his plea to the emperor, the plaintiff, pretending to have 
discovered the murderer, pointed to him as the man he 
had seen in his dream ; whereupon, as if he had been 
taken in the act, he was hurried away to execution. We 
are informed, that Appius Silanus was got rid of in the 
same manner, by a contrivance betwixt Messalina and 
Narcissus, in which they had their several parts assigned 
them. Narcissus therefore burst into his lord's chamber 
before daylight, apparently in great fright, and told him 
that he had dreamt that Appius Silanus had murdered 
him. The empress, upon this, affecting great surprise, 
declared she had the like dream for several nights suc- 
cessively. Presently afterwards, word was brought, as it 
had been agreed on, that Appius was come, he having, 
indeed, received orders the preceding day to be there at 
that time ; and, as if the truth of the dream was suffi- 
ciently confirmed by his appearance at that juncture, he 
was immediately ordered to be prosecuted and put to 
death. The day following, Claudius related the whole 
affair to the senate, and acknowledged his great obliga- 
tion to his freedmen for watching over him even in his 
sleep. 

XXXVIII. Sensible of his being subject to passion and 
resentment, he excused himself in both instances by a proc- 
lamation, assuring the public that " the former should be 
short and harmless, and the latter never without good 
cause." After severely reprimanding the people of Ostia 



336 SUETONIUS. 

for not sending some boats to meet him upon his enter- 
ing the mouth of the Tiber, in terms which might expose 
them to the public resentment, he wrote to Rome that he 
had been treated as a private person ; yet immediately 
afterwards he pardoned them, and that in a way which 
had the appearance of making them satisfaction, or beg- 
ging pardon for some injury he had done them. Some 
people who addressed him unseasonably in public, he 
pushed away with his own hand. He likewise banished a 
person who had been secretary to a quaestor, and even a 
senator who had filled the office of praetor, without a hear- 
ing, and although they were innocent; the former only 
because he had treated him with rudeness while he was in 
a private station, and the other, because in his aedileship 
he had fined some tenants of his, for selling some cooked 
victuals contrary to law, and ordered his steward, who in- 
terfered, to be whipped. On this account, likewise, he took 
from the ediles the jurisdiction they had over cooks'-shops. 
He did not scruple to speak of his own absurdities, and 
declared in some short speeches which he published, that 
he had only feigned imbecility in the reign of Caius, be- 
cause otherwise it would have been impossible for him to 
have escaped and arrived at the station he had then at- 
tained. He could not, however, gain credit for this asser- 
tion ; for a short time afterwards, a book was published 
under the title of M<opajv wmaxdaiq, "The Resurrection of 
Fools," the design of which was to show "that nobody 
ever counterfeited folly." 

XXXIX. Amongst other things, people admired in 
him his indifference and unconcern ; or, to express it in 
Greek, his u-ers^ia and afiXeQia. Placing himself at table a 
little after Messalina's death, he enquired, " Why the em- 
press did not come ?" Many of those whom he had con- 
demned to death, he ordered the day after to be invited to 



CLAUDIUS. 337 

his table, and to game with him, and sent to reprimand 
them as sluggish fellows for not making greater haste. 
When he was meditating his incestuous marriage with 
Agrippina, he was perpetually calling her, " My daughter, 
my nursling, born and brought up upon my lap." And 
when he was going to adopt Nero, as if there was little 
cause for censure in his adopting a son-in-law, when he 
had a son of his own arrived at years of maturity ; he 
continually gave out in public, " that no one had ever 
been admitted by adoption into the Claudian family " 

XL. He frequently appeared so careless in what he 
said, and so inattentive to circumstances, that it was be- 
lieved he never reflected who he himself was, or amongst 
whom, or at what time, or in what place, he spoke. In the 
debate in the senate relative to the butchers and vintners, 
he cried out, " I ask you, who can live without a bit of 
meat?" And mentioned the great plenty of old taverns, 
from which he himself used formerly to have his wine. 
Among other reasons for his supporting a certain person 
who was candidate for the quaestorship, he gave this : "His 
father," said he, " once gave me, very seasonably, a draught 
of cold water when I was sick." Upon his bringing a wo- 
man as a witness in some cause before the senate, he 
said, " This woman was my mother's freedwoman and 
dresser, but she always considered me as her master ; and 
this I say, because there are some still in my family that 
do not look upon me as such." The people of Ostia ad- 
dressing him in open court with a petition, he flew into a 
rage at them, and said, " There is no reason why I should 
oblige you : if any one else is free to act as he pleases, 
surely I am." The following expressions he had in his 
mouth every day, and at all hours and seasons : " What ! 
do you take me for a Theogonius P" 1 And in Greek Mket 

1 Scaliger and Casaubon give Teleggenius as the reading of the best 

22 



338 SUETONIUS. 

xai ixy) dfyyave, " Speak, but do not touch me ;" besides many 
other familiar sentences, below the dignity of a private 
person, much more of an emperor, who was not deficient 
either in eloquence or learning, as having applied himself 
very closely to the liberal sciences. 

XLI. By the encouragement of Titus Livius, 1 and with 
the assistance of Sulpicius Flavus, he attempted at an 
early age the composition of a history ; and having called 
together a numerous auditory, to hear and give their judg- 
ment upon it, he read it over with much difficulty, and 
frequently interrupting himself. For after he had begun 
a great laugh was raised amongst the company, by the 
breaking of several benches from the weight of a very fat 
man ; and even when order was restored, he could not 
forbear bursting out into violent fits of laughter, at the 
remembrance of the accident. After he became emperor, 
likewise, he wrote several things which he was careful to 
have recited to his friends by a reader. He commenced 
his history from the death of the dictator Caesar; but 
afterwards he took a later period, and began at the conclu- 
sion of the civil wars; because he found he could not 
speak with freedom, and a due regard to truth, concern- 
ing the former period, having been often taken to task 
both by his mother and grandmother. Of the earlier 
history he left only two books, but of the latter, one and 
forty. He compiled likewise the " History of his Own 
Life," in eight books, full of absurdities, but in no bad 
style ; also, " A Defence of Cicero against the Books of 
Asinius Gallus," 2 which exhibited a considerable degree 

manuscripts. Whoever he was, his name seems to have been a bye- 
word for a notorious fool. 

1 Titus Livius, the prince of Roman historians, died in the fourth 
year of the reign of Tiberius, a. u. c. 771; at which time Claudius was 
about twenty-seven years old, having been born A. u. c. 744. 

2 Asinius Gallus was the son of Asinius Pollio, the famous orator, and 



CLAUDIUS. 339 

of learning He besides invented three new letters, and 
added them to the former alphabet, 1 as highly necessary. 
He published a book to recommend them while he was 
yet only a private person ; but on his elevation to impe- 
rial power he had little difficulty in introducing them into 
common use ; and these letters are still extant in a vari- 
ety of books, registers, and inscriptions upon buildings. 

XLII. He applied himself with no less attention to the 
study of Grecian literature, asserting upon all occasions his 
love of that language, and its surpassing excellency. A 
stranger once holding a discourse both in Greek and La- 
tin, he addressed him thus : " Since you are skilled in both 
our tongues." And recommending Achaia to the favour 
of the senate, he said, " I have a particular attachment to 
that province, on account of our common studies." In 
the senate he often made long replies to ambassadors in 
that language. On the tribunal he frequently quoted the 
verses of Homer. When at any time he had taken ven- 
geance on an enemy or a conspirator, he scarcely ever 
gave to the tribune on guard, who, according to custom, 
came for the word, any other than this : — 

' 'Avdp irrajibxuTdcu ore rtq Tzpozepot; ^aXs7Z7j^7). 
'Tis time to strike when wrong demands the blow. 

To conclude, he wrote some histories likewise in Greek, 
namely, twenty books on Tuscan affairs, and eight on the 
Carthaginian ; in consequence of which another museum 

had written a book comparing his father with Cicero, and giving the 
former the preference. 

1 Quintilian informs us, that one of the three new letters the emperor 
Claudius attempted to introduce, was the ^Eolic digamma, which had 
the same force as v consonant. Priscian calls another anti-sigma, and 
says that the character proposed was two Greek sigmas, back to back, 
and that it was substituted for the Greek <p, ps. The other letter is not 
known, and all three soon fell into disuse. 



3 4o SUETONIUS. 

was founded at Alexandria, in addition to the old one, and 
called after his name ; and it was ordered, that, upon cer- 
tain days in every year, his Tuscan history should be read 
over in one of these, and his Carthaginian in the other, as 
in a school ; each history being read through by persons 
who took it in turn. 

XLII. Towards the close of his life, he gave some 
manifest indications that he repented of his marriage with 
Agrippina, and his adoption of Nero. For some of his 
freedmen noticing with approbation his having condemn- 
ed, the day before, a woman accused of adultery, he re- 
marked, " It has been my misfortune to have wives who 
have been unfaithful to my bed ; but they did not escape 
punishment." Often, when he happened to meet Britan- 
nicus, he would embrace him tenderly, and express a de- 
sire " that he might grow apace, and receive from him an 
account of all his actions : " using the Greek phrase, 
6 rpwaaq xa\ ~ia<7erai, " He who has wounded will also heal." 
And intending to give him the manly habit, while he was 
under age and a tender youth, because his stature would 
allow of it, he added, " I do so, that the Roman people 
may at last have a real Caesar." x 

XLIV. Soon afterwards he made his will, and had it 
signed by all the magistrates as witnesses. But he was 
prevented from proceeding further by Agrippina, accused 
by her own guilty conscience, as well as by informers, of 
a variety of crimes. It is agreed that he was taken off 
by poison ; but where, and by whom administered, re- 
mains in uncertainty. Some authors say that it was given 
him as he was feasting with the priests in the Capitol, by 
the eunuch Halotus, his taster. Others say by Agrippina, 
at his own table, in mushrooms, a dish of which he was 

1 Caesar by birth, not by adoption, as the preceding emperors had 
been, and as Nero would be, if he succeeded. 



CLAUDIUS. 341 

very fond. 1 The accounts of what followed likewise 
differ. Some relate that he instantly became speechless, 
was racked with pain through the night, and died about 
daybreak ; others, that at first he fell into a sound sleep, 
— and afterwards, his food rising, he threw up the whole ; 
but had another dose given him ; whether in water-gruel, 
under pretence of refreshment after his exhaustion, or in 
a clyster, as if designed to relieve his bowels, is likewise 
uncertain. 

XLV. His death was kept secret until everything was 
settled relative to his successor. Accordingly, vows were 
made for his recovery, and comedians were called to 
amuse him, as it was pretended, by his own desire. He 
died upon the third of the ides of October [13th Octo- 
ber] , in the consulship of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius 
Aviola, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the four- 
teenth of his reign. 2 His funeral was celebrated with the 
customary imperial pomp, and he was ranked amongst 
the gods. This honour was taken from him by Nero, but 
restored by Vespasian. 

XLVI. The chief presages of his death were, the ap- 
pearance of a comet, his father Drusus's monument being 
struck by lightning, and the death of most of the magis- 
trates of all ranks that year. It appears from several 
circumstances, that he was sensible of his approaching 
dissolution, and made no secret of it. For when he nom- 
inated the consuls, he appointed no one to fill the office 
beyond the month in which he died. At the last assem- 
bly of the senate in which he made his appearance, he 
earnestly exhorted his two sons to unity with each other, 
and with earnest entreaties commended to the fathers the 

1 Tacitus informs us, that the poison was prepared by Locusta, of 
whom we shall hear, Nero, c. xxxiii. &c. 

2 a. u. c. 806; a. d 54. 



342 SUETONIUS. 

care of their tender years. And in the last cause he 
heard from the tribunal, he repeatedly declared in open 
court, " That he was now arrived at the last stage of mor- 
tal existence ; " whilst all who heard it shrunk at hearing 
these ominous words. 



The violent death of Caligula afforded the Romans a fresh opportu- 
nity to have asserted the liberty of their country ; but the conspirators 
had concerted no plan, by which they should proceed upon the assas- 
sination of that tyrant ; and the indecision of the senate, in a debate 
of two days, on so sudden an emergency, gave time to the caprice of 
the soldiers to interpose in the settlement of the government. By an 
accident the most fortuitous, a man devoid of all pretensions to per- 
sonal merit, so weak in understanding as to be the common sport of 
the emperor's household, and an object of contempt even to his own 
kindred ; this man, in the hour of military insolence, was nominated 
by the soldiers as successor to the Roman throne. Not yet in posses- 
sion of the public treasury, which perhaps was exhausted, he could not 
immediately reward the services of his electors with a pecuniary gratifi- 
cation ) but he promised them a largess of fifteen thousand sesterces a 
man, upwards of a hundred and forty pounds sterling; and as we meet 
with no account of any subsequent discontents in the army, we may 
justly conclude that the promise was soon after fulfilled. This trans- 
action laid the foundation of that military despotism, which, through 
many succeeding ages, convulsed the Roman empire. 

Besides the interposition of the soldiers upon this occasion, it ap- 
pears that the populace of Rome were extremely clamorous for the 
government of a single person, and for that of Claudius in particular. 
This partiality for a monarchical government proceeded from two 
causes. The commonalty, from their obscure situation, were always 
the least exposed to oppression, under a tyrannical prince. They had 
likewise ever been remarkably fond of stage-plays- and public shows, 
with which, as well as with scrambles, and donations of bread and 
other victuals, the preceding emperor had frequently gratified them. 
They had therefore less to fear, and more to hope, from the govern- 
ment of a single person than any other class of Roman citizens. With 
regard to the partiality for Claudius, it may be accounted for partly 
from the low habits of life to which he had been addicted, in conse- 



CLAUDIUS. 343 

quence of which many of them were familiarly acquainted with him ; 
and this circumstance likewise increased their hope of deriving some 
advantage from his accession. Exclusive of all these considerations, it 
is highly probable that the populace were instigated in favour of Clau- 
dius by the artifices of his freedmen, persons of mean extraction, by 
whom he was entirely governed, and who, upon such an occasion, 
would exert their utmost efforts to procure his appointment to the 
throne. From the debate in the senate having continued during two 
days, it was evident that there was still a strong party for restoring the 
ancient form of government. That they were in the end overawed by 
the clamour of the multitude, is not surprising, when we consider that 
the senate was totally unprovided with resources of every kind for as- 
serting the independence of the nation by arms ; and the commonalty, 
who interrupted their deliberations, were the only people by whose as- 
sistance they ever could effect the restitution of public freedom. To 
this may be added, that the senate, by the total reduction of their po- 
litical importance, ever since the overthrow of the republic, had lost 
both the influence and authority which they formerly enjoyed. The 
extreme cruelty, likewise, which had been exercised during the last two 
reigns, afforded a further motive for relinquishing all attempts in favour 
of liberty, as they might be severely revenged upon themselves by the 
subsequent emperor : and it was a degree of moderation in Claudius, 
which palliates the injustice of his cause, that he began his government 
with an act of amnesty respecting the public transactions which ensued 
upon the death of Caligula. 

Claudius, at the time of his accession, was fifty years of age ; and 
though he had hitherto lived apparently unambitious of public honours, 
accompanied with .great ostentation, yet he was now seized with a desire 
to enjoy a triumph. As there existed no war, in which he might per- 
form some military achievement, his vanity could only be gratified by 
invading a foreign country, where, contrary to the advice contained in 
the testament of Augustus, he might attempt to extend still further the 
limits of the empire. Either Britain, therefore, or some nation on the 
continent, at a great distance from the capital, became the object of 
such an enterprize ; and the former was chosen, not only as more con- 
venient, from its vicinity to the maritime province of Gaul, but on ac- 
count of a remonstrance lately presented by the Britons to the court of 
Rome, respecting the protection afforded to some persons of that nation, 
who had fled thither to elude the laws of their country. Considering 
the state of Britain at that time, divided as it was into a number of prin- 
cipalities, amongst which there was no general confederacy for mutual 



344 SUETONIUS. 

defence, and where the alarm excited by the invasion of Julius Caesar, 
upwards of eighty years before, had long since been forgotten ; a sud- 
den attempt upon the island could not fail to be attended with success. 
Accordingly, an army was sent over, under the command of Aulus Plau- 
tius, an able general, who defeated the natives in several engagements, 
and penetrated a considerable way into the country. Preparations for 
the emperor's voyage now being made, Claudius set sail from Ostia, at 
the mouth of the Tiber ; but meeting with a violent storm in the Med- 
iterranean, he landed at Marseilles, and proceeding thence to Boulogne 
in Picardy, passed over into Britain. In what part he debarked, is un- 
certain, but it seems to have been at some place on the south-east coast 
of the island. He immediately received the submission of several British 
states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited 
those parts ; and returning to Rome, after an absence of six months, 
celebrated with great pomp the triumph, for which he had undertaken 
the expedition. 

In the interior parts of Britain, the natives, under the command of 
Caractacus, maintained an obstinate resistance, and little progress was 
made by the Roman arms, until Ostorius Scapula was sent over to pros- 
ecute the war. He penetrated into the country of the Silures, a warlike 
tribe, who inhabited the banks of the Severn; and having defeated 
Caractacus in a great battle, made him prisoner, and sent him to Rome. 
The fame of the British prince had by this time spread over the prov- 
inces of Gaul and Italy ; and upon his arrival in the Roman capital, 
the people flocked from all quarters to behold him. The ceremonial of 
his entrance was conducted with great solemnity. On a plain adjoin- 
ing the Roman camp, the pretorian troops were drawn up in military 
array : the emperor and his court took their station in front of the lines, 
and behind them was ranged the whole body of the people. The pro. 
cession commenced with the different trophies which had been taken 
from the Britons during the progress of the war. Next followed the 
brothers of the vanquished prince, with his wife and daughter, in chains, 
expressing by their supplicating looks and gestures the fears with which 
they were actuated. But not so Caractacus himself. With a manly 
gait and an undaunted countenance, he marched up to the tribunal, 
where the emperor was seated, and addressed him in the following 
terms : — 

" If to my high birth and distinguished rank, I had added the virtues 
of moderation, Rome had beheld me rather as a friend than a captive ; 
and you would not have rejected an alliance with a prince, descended 
from illustrious ancestors, and governing many nations. The reverse 



CLAUDIUS. 345 

of my fortune to you is glorious, and to me humiliating. I had arms, 
and men, and horses; I possessed extraordinary riches; and can it be 
any wonder that I was unwilling to lose them ? Because Rome aspires 
to universal dominion, must men therefore implicitly resign themselves 
to subjection ? I opposed for a long time the progress of your arms, 
and had I acted otherwise, would either you have had the glory of con- 
quest, or I of a brave resistance ? I am now in your power : if you are 
determined to take revenge, my fate will soon be forgotten, and you 
will derive no honour from the transaction. Preserve my life, and I 
shall remain to the latest ages a monument of your clemency." 

Immediately upon this speech, Claudius granted him his liberty, as 
he did likewise to the other royal captives. They all returned their 
thanks in a manner the most grateful to the emperor ; and as soon as 
their chains were taken off, walking towards Agrippina, who sat upon a 
bench at a little distance, they repeated to her the same fervent declara- 
tions of gratitude and esteem. 

History has preserved no account of Caractacus after this period ; 
but it is probable that he returned in a short time to his own country, 
where his former valour, and the magnanimity which he had displayed 
at Rome, would continue to render him illustrious through life, even 
amidst the irretrievable ruin of his fortunes. 

The most extraordinary character in the present reign was that of 
Valeria Messalina, the daughter of Valerius Messala Barbatus. She 
was married to Claudius, and had by him a son and a daughter. To 
cruelty in the prosecution of her purposes, she added the most aban- 
doned incontinence. Not confining her licentiousness within the lim- 
its of the palace, where she committed the most shameful excesses, she 
prostituted her person in the common stews, and even in the public 
streets of the capital. As if her conduct was already not sufficiently 
scandalous, she obliged C. Silius, a man of consular rank, to divorce 
his wife, that she might procure his company entirely to herself. Not 
contented with this indulgence to her criminal passion, she next per- 
suaded him to marry her ; and during an excursion which the emperor 
made to Ostia, the ceremony of marriage was actually performed be- 
tween them. The occasion was celebrated with a magnificent supper, 
to which she invited a large company ; and lest the whole should be 
regarded as a frolic, not meant to be consummated, the adulterous par- 
ties ascended the nuptial couch in the presence of the astonished spec- 
tators. Great as was the facility of Claudius's temper in respect of her 
former behaviour, he could not overlook so flagrant a violation both of 
public decency and the laws of the country. Silius was condemned to 



346 SUETONIUS. 

death for the adultery which he had perpetrated with reluctance ; and 
Messalina was ordered into the emperor's presence, to answer for her 
conduct. Terror now operating upon her mind in conjunction with 
remorse, she could not summon the resolution to support such an inter- 
view, but retired into the gardens of Lucullus, there to indulge at last 
the compunction which she felt for her crimes, and to meditate the en- 
treaties by which she should endeavour to soothe the resentment of her 
husband. In the extremity of her distress, she attempted to lay violent 
hands upon herself, but her courage was not equal to the emergency. 
Her mother, Lepida, who had not spoken with her for some years be- 
fore, was present upon the occasion, and urged her to the act which 
alone could put a period to her infamy and wretchedness. Again she 
made an effort, but again her resolution abandoned her; when a tribune 
burst into the gardens, and plunging his sword into her body, she in- 
stantly expired. Thus perished a woman, the scandal of whose lewd- 
ness resounded throughout the empire, and of whom a great satirist, 
then living, has said, perhaps without a hyperbole, 

Et lassata viris, necdum satiata, recessit. — Juvenal, Sat. VI. 

It has been already observed, that Claudius was entirely governed by 
his freedmen ; a class of retainers which enjoyed a great share of 
favour and confidence with their patrons in those times. They had 
before been the slaves of their masters, and had obtained their freedom 
as a reward for their faithful and attentive services. Of the esteem in 
which they were often held, we meet with an instance in Tiro, the 
freedman of Cicero, to whom that illustrious Roman addresses several 
epistles, written in the most familiar and affectionate strain of friend- 
ship. As it was common for them to be taught the more useful parts 
of education in the families of their masters, they were usually well 
qualified for the management of domestic concerns, and might even be 
competent to the superior departments of the state, especially in those 
times when negotiations and treaties with foreign princes seldom or 
never occurred ; and in arbitrary governments, where public affairs 
were directed more by the will of the sovereign or his ministers, than 
by refined suggestions of policy. 

From the character generally given of Claudius before his elevation 
to the throne, we should not readily imagine that he was endowed 
with any taste for literary composition ; yet he seems to have exclusive- 
ly enjoyed this distinction during his own reign, in which learning was 
at a low ebb. Besides history, Suetonius informs us that he wrote 
a Defence of Cicero against the Charges of Asinius Gallus. This 



CLAUDIUS. 347 

appears to be the only tribute of esteem or approbation paid to the 
character of Cicero, from the time of Livy the historian, to the extinc- 
tion of the race of the Caesars. Asinius Gallus was the son of Asinius 
Pollio, the orator. Marrying Vipsania after she had been divorced by 
Tiberius, he incurred the displeasure of that emperor, and died of 
famine, either voluntarily, or by order of the tyrant. He wrote a 
comparison between his father and Cicero, in which, with more filial 
partiality than justice, he gave the preference to the former. 



NERO CLAUDIUS CiESAR. 



I. Two celebrated families, the Calvini and ^nobarbi, 
sprung from the race of the Domitii. The ^Enobarbi 
derive both their extraction and their cognomen from one 
Lucius Domitius, of whom we have this tradition : — As 
he was returning out of the country to Rome, he was met 
by two young men of a most august appearance, who de- 
sired him to announce to the senate and people a victory, 
of which no certain intelligence had yet reached the city. 
To prove that they were more than mortals, they stroked 
his cheeks, and thus changed his hair, which was black, to 
a bright colour, resembling that of brass ; which mark of 
distinction descended to his posterity, for they had gen- 
erally red beards. This family had the honour of seven 
consulships, 1 one triumph, 2 and two censorships ; 3 and be- 
ing admitted into the patrician order, they continued the 
use of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina, 4 than 
those of Cneius and Lucius. These, however, they as- 
sumed with singular irregularity ; three persons in suc- 
cession sometimes adhering to one of them, and then 
they were changed alternately. For the first, second, and 
third of the ^Enobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius, and 

l a. u. c. 593, 632, 658, 660, 700, 722, 785. 

2 A. U. C. 632. 

3 A. U. C. 639,663. 

4 For the distinction between the prcznomen and cognomen, see note, 

P- 175- 

348 




THE EMPEROR NER 



GEBBIE Sl CO 



NERO. 349 

again the three following, successively, that of Cneius, 
while those who came after were called, by turns, one, 
Lucius, and the other, Cneius. It appears to me proper 
to give a short account of several of the family, to show 
that Nero so far degenerated from the noble qualities of 
his ancestors, that he retained only their vices ; as if those 
alone had been transmitted to him by his descent. 

II. To begin, therefore, at a remote period, his great- 
grandfather's grandfather, Cneius Domitius, when he was 
tribune of the people, being offended with the high priests 
for electing another than himself in the room of his father, 
obtained the transfer of the right of election from the 
colleges of the priests to the people. In his consulship, 1 
having conquered the Allobroges and the Arverni, 2 he 
made a progress through the province, mounted upon an 
elephant, with a body of soldiers attending him, in a sort of 
triumphal pomp. Of this person the orator Licinius Cras- 
sus said, " It was no wonder he had a brazen beard, who 
had a face of iron, and a heart of lead." His son, during 
his praetorship, 3 proposed that Cneius Caesar, upon the 
expiration of his consulship, should be called to account 
before the senate for his administration of that office, 
which was supposed to be contrary both to the omens and 
the laws. Afterwards, when he was consul himself, 4 he 
tried to deprive Cneius of the command of the army, and 
having been, by intrigue and cabal, appointed his suc- 
cessor, he was made prisoner at Corsinium, in the begin- 
ning of the civil war. Being set at liberty, he went to 
Marseilles, which was then besieged ; where having by his 
presence, animated the people to hold out, he suddenly 

1 a. u. c. 632. 

2 The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and 
Savoy ; the Averni have left their name in Auvergne. 

3 a. u. c. 695. * a. u. c. 700. 



350 SUETONIUS. 



deserted them, and at last was slain in the battle of Phar- 
salia. He was a man of little constancy, and of a sullen 
temper. In despair of his fortunes, he had recourse to 
poison, but was so terrified at the thoughts of death, that, 
immediately repenting, he took a vomit to throw it up 
again, and gave freedom to his physician for having, with 
great prudence and wisdom, given him only a gentle dose 
of the poison. When Cneius Pompey was consulting with 
his friends in what manner he should conduct himself to- 
wards those who were neuter and took no part in the con- 
test, he was the only one who proposed that they should 
be treated as enemies. 

III. He left a son, who was, without doubt, the best of 
the family. By the Pedian law, he was condemned, al- 
though innocent, amongst others who were concerned in 
the death of Caesar. 1 Upon this, he went over to Brutus 
and Cassius, his near relations ; and, after their death, not 
only kept together the fleet, the command of which had 
been given him some time before, but even increased it. 
At last, when the party had everywhere been defeated, he 
voluntarily surrendered it to Mark Antony ; considering 
it as a piece of service for which the latter owed him no 
small obligations. Of all those who were condemned by 
the law above-mentioned, he was the only man who was 
restored to his country, and filled the highest offices. 
When the civil war again broke out, he was appointed 
lieutenant under the same Antony, and offered the chief 
command by those who were ashamed of Cleopatra ; but 
not daring, on account of a sudden indisposition with 
which he was seized, either to accept or refuse it, he went 
over to Augustus, 2 and died a few days after, not without 
an aspersion cast upon his memory. For Antony gave 

1 A. U. C 711. 2 A. U. C. 723. 



NERO. 351 

out, that he was induced to change sides by his impatience 
to be with his mistress, Servilia Nais. 1 

IV. This Cneius had a son, named Domitius, who was 
afterwards well known as the nominal purchaser of the 
family property left by Augustus's will ; 2 and no less fa- 
mous in his youth for his dexterity in chariot-driving, than 
he was afterwards for the triumphal ornaments which he 
obtained in the German war. But he was a man of great 
arrogance, prodigality, and cruelty. When he was aedile, 
he obliged Lucius Plancus, the censor, to give him the 
way ; and in his prsetorship, and consulship, he made Ro- 
man knights and married women act on the stage. He 
gave hunts of wild beasts, both in the Circus and in all 
the wards of the city ; as also a show of gladiators ; but 
with such barbarity, that Augustus, after privately repri- 
manding him, to no purpose, was obliged to restrain him 
by a public edict. 

V. By the elder Antonia he had Nero's father, a man 
of execrable character in every part of his life. During 
his attendance upon Caius Caesar in the East, he killed a 
freedman of his own, for refusing to drink as much as he 
ordered him. Being dismissed for this from Caesar's so- 
ciety, he did not mend his habits ; for, in a village upon 
the Appian road, he suddenly whipped his horses, and 
drove his chariot, on purpose, over a poor boy, crushing 
him to pieces. At Rome, he struck out the eye of a Ro- 
man knight in the Forum, only for some free language in 
a dispute between them. He was likewise so fraudulent, 
that he not only cheated some silversmiths 3 of the price 

1 Nais seems to have been a freed woman, who had been allowed to 
adopt the family name of her master. 

2 By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems 
of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the 
testator's life-time. 

8 The suggestion offered (note, p. 138), that the Argentarii, like the 



352 SUETONIUS. 

of goods he had bought of them, but, during his praetor- 
ship, defrauded the owners of chariots in the Circensian 
games of the prizes due to them for their victory. His 
sister, jeering him for the complaints made by the leaders 
of the several parties, he agreed to sanction a law, " That, 
for the future, the prizes should be immediately paid." A 
little before the death of Tiberius, he was prosecuted for 
treason, adulteries, and incest with his sister Lepida, but 
escaped in the timely change of affairs, ana died of a 
dropsy, at Pyrgi ; l leaving behind him his son, Nero, 
whom he had by Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. 
VI. Nero was born at Antium, nine months after the 
death of Tiberius, 2 upon the eighteenth of the calends of 
January [15th December], just as the sun rose, so that 
its beams touched him before they could well reach the 
earth. While many fearful conjectures, in respect to his 
future fortune, were formed by different persons, from 
the circumstances of his nativity, a saying of his father, 
Domitius, was regarded as an ill presage, who told his 
friends who were congratulating him upon the occasion, 
" That nothing but what was detestable and pernicious to 
the public, could ever be produced of him and Agrip- 
pina." Another manifest prognostic of his future infeli- 
city occurred upon his lustration day. 3 For Caius Caesar 

goldsmiths of the middle ages, combined the business of bankers, or 
money changers, with dealings in gold and silver plate, is confirmed by 
this passage. It does not, however, appear that they were artificers of 
the precious metals, though they dealt in old and current coins, sculp- 
tured vessels, gems, and precious stones. 

1 Pyrgi was a town of the ancient Etruria, near Antium, on the sea- 
coast, but it has long been destroyed. 

2 a. u. c. 791; a. d. 39. 

3 The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Ro- 
mans, in the case of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. 
The customs of the Judaical law were similar. See Matt. i. 59 — 63. 
Luke iii. 21, 22. 



NERO. 353 

being requested by his sister to give the child what name 
he thought proper — looking at his uncle, Claudius, who 
afterwards, when emperor, adopted Nero, he gave his : 
and this not seriously, but only in jest; Agrippina treat- 
ing it with contempt, because Claudius at that time was a 
mere laughing-stock at the palace. He lost his father 
when he was three years old, being left heir to a third 
part of his estate ; of which he never got possession, the 
whole being seized by his co-heir, Caius. His mother 
being soon after banished, he lived with his aunt Lepida, 
in a very necessitous condition, under the care of two tu- 
tors, a dancing-master and a barber. After Claudius 
came to the empire, he not only recovered his father's es- 
tate, but was enriched with the additional inheritance of 
that of his step-father, Crispus Passienus. Upon his 
mother's recall from banishment, he was advanced to such 
favour, through Nero's powerful interest with the em- 
peror, that it was reported, assassins were employed by 
Messalina, Claudius's wife, to strangle him, as Britanni- 
cus's rival, whilst he was taking his noon-day repose. In 
addition to the story, it was said that they were frightened 
by a serpent, which crept from under his cushion, and ran 
away. The tale was occasioned by finding on his couch, 
near the pillow, the skin of a snake, which, by his mother's 
order, he wore for some time upon his right arm, inclosed 
in a bracelet of gold. This amulet, at last, he laid aside, 
from aversion to her memory ; but he sought for it again 
in vain, in the time of his extremity. 

VII. When he was yet a mere boy, before he arrived at 
the age of puberty, during the celebration of the Circen- 
sian games, 1 he performed his part in the Trojan play with 
a degree of firmness which gained him great applause. 
In the eleventh year of his age, he was adopted by Clau- 

1 a. u. c. 806. 
23 



354 SUETONIUS. 

dius, and placed under the tuition of Annaeus Seneca, 1 
who had been made a senator. It is said, that Seneca 
dreamt the night after, that he was giving a lesson to 
Caius Caesar. 2 Nero soon verified his dream, betraying 
the cruelty of his disposition in every way he could. For 
he attempted to persuade his father that his brother, 
Britannicus, was nothing but a changeling, because the 
latter had saluted him, notwithstanding his adoption, by 
the name of ^Enobarbus, as usual. When his aunt, 
Lepida, was brought to trial, he appeared in court as a 
witness against her, to gratify his mother, who persecuted 
the accused. On his introduction into the Forum, at the 
age of manhood, he gave a largess to the people and a 
donative to the soldiers ; for the pretorian cohorts, he 
appointed a solemn procession under arms, and marched 
at the head of them with a shield in his hand ; after which 
he went to return thanks to his father in the senate. 
Before Claudius, likewise, at the time he was consul, he 
made a speech for the Bolognese, in Latin, and for the 
Rhodians and people of Ilium, in Greek. He had the 
jurisdiction of praefect of the city, for the first time, 
during the Latin festival ; during which the most cele- 
brated advocates brought before him, not short and 
trifling causes, as is usual in that case, but trials of im- 
portance, notwithstanding they had instructions from 
Claudius himself to the contrary. Soon afterwards, he 
married Octavia, and exhibited the Circensian games, and 
hunting of wild beasts, in honour of Claudius. 

VIII. He was seventeen years of age at the death of 
that prince, 3 and as soon as that event was made public, 

1 Seneca, the celebrated philosophical writer, had been released from 
exile in Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards 
fell a sacrifice to the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero. 

2 Caligula. 

3 a. u. c. 809 — a. d. 87. 



NERO. 355 

he went out to the cohort on guard between the hours of 
six and seven ; for the omens were so disastrous, that no 
earlier time of the day was judged proper. On the steps 
before the palace gate, he was unanimously saluted by 
the soldiers as their emperor, and then carried in a litter 
to the camp ; thence, after making a short speech to the 
troops, into the senate-house, where he continued until 
the evening ; of all the immense honours which were 
heaped upon him, refusing but the title of Father of his 
Country, on account of his youth. 

IV. He began his reign with an ostentation of dutiful 
regard to the memory of Claudius, whom he buried with 
the utmost pomp and magnificence, pronouncing the fune- 
ral oration himself, and then had him enrolled amongst 
the gods. He paid likewise the highest honours to the 
memory of his father Domitius. He left the management 
of affairs, both public and private, to his mother. The 
word which he gave the first day of his reign to the tribune 
on guard, was, "The Best of Mothers," and afterwards 
he frequently appeared with her in the streets of Rome 
in her litter. He settled a colony at Antium, in which he 
placed the veteran soldiers belonging to the guards ; and 
obliged several of the richest centurions of the first rank 
to transfer their residence to that place ; where he like- 
wise made a noble harbour at a prodigious expense. 1 

X. To establish still further his character, he declared, 
" that he designed to govern according to the model of 

1 Antium, the birth-place of Nero, an ancient city of the Volscians, 
stood on a rocky promontory of the coast, now called Capo d' Anzo, 
about thirty-eight miles from Rome. Though always a place of some 
naval importance, it was indebted to Nero for its noble harbour. The 
ruins of the moles yet remain ; and there are vestiges of the temples 
and villas of the town, which was the resort of the wealthy Romans, it 
being a most delightful winter residence. The Apollo Belvidere was 
discovered among these ruins. 



356 SUETONIUS. 

Augustus ; " and omitted no opportunity of showing his 
generosity, clemency, and complaisance. The more bur- 
thensome taxes he either entirely took off, or diminished. 
The rewards appointed for informers by the Papian law, 
he reduced to a fourth part, and distributed to the people 
four hundred sesterces a man. To the noblest of the 
senators who were much reduced in their circumstances, 
he granted annual allowances, in some cases as much as 
five hundred thousand sesterces ; and to the pretorian 
cohorts a monthly allowance of corn gratis. When called 
upon to subscribe the sentence, according to custom, of a 
criminal condemned to die, " I wish, " said he, " I had never 
learnt to read and write. " He continually saluted peo- 
ple of the several orders by name, without a prompter. 
When the senate returned him their thanks for his good 
government, he replied to them, " It will be time enough 
to do so when I shall have deserved it." He admitted 
the common people to see him perform his exercises in 
the Campus Martius. He frequently declaimed in pub- 
lic, and recited verses of his own composing, not only at 
home, but in the theatre ; so much to the joy of all the 
people, that public prayers were appointed to be put to 
the gods upon that account; and the verses which had 
been publicly read, were, after being written in gold letters, 
consecrated to Jupiter Capitolinus. 

XI. He presented the people with a great number and 
variety of spectacles, as the Juvenal and Circensian games, 
stage-plays, and an exhibition of gladiators. In the Juve- 
nal, he even admitted senators and aged matrons to per- 
form parts. In the Circensian games, he assigned the 
equestrian order seats apart from the rest of the people, 
and had races performed by chariots drawn each by four 
camels. In the games which he instituted for the eternal 
duration of the empire, and therefore ordered to be called 



NERO. 357 

Maximi, many of the senatorian and equestrian order, of 
both sexes performed. A distinguished Roman knight 
descended on the stage by a rope, mounted on an 
elephant. A Roman play, likewise, composed by Afran- 
ius, was brought upon the stage. It was entitled, " The 
Fire ; " and in it the performers were allowed to carry off, 
and to keep to themselves, the furniture of the house, which, 
as the plot of the play required, was burnt down in the 
theatre. Every day during the solemnity, many thou- 
sand articles of all descriptions were thrown amongst the 
people to scramble for ; such as fowls of different kinds, 
tickets for corn, clothes, gold, silver, gems, pearls, pictures, 
slaves, beasts of burden, wild beasts that had been tamed ; 
at last, ships, lots of houses, and lands, were offered as 
prizes in a lottery. 

XII. These games he beheld from the front of the 
proscenium. In the show of gladiators, which he exhibited 
in a wooden amphitheatre, built within a year in the dis- 
trict of the Campus Martius, 1 he ordered that none should 
be slain, not even the condemned criminals employed in 
the combats. He secured four hundred senators, and six 
hundred Roman knights, amongst whom were some of 
unbroken fortunes and unblemished reputation, to act as 
gladiators. From the same orders, he engaged persons 
to encounter wild beasts, and for various other services in 
the theatre. He presented the public with the representa- 
tion of a naval fight, upon sea-water, with huge fishes 
swimming in it ; as also with the Pyrrhic dance, performed 
by certain youths, to each of whom, after the performance 
was over, he granted the freedom of Rome, During this 
diversion, a bull covered Pasiphae, concealed within a 
wooden statue of a cow, as many of the spectators believed. 
Icarus, upon his first attempt to fly, fell on the stage close 

1 A. u. c. 810. 



358 SUETONIUS. 

to the emperor's pavilion, and bespattered him with blood. 
For he very seldom presided in the games, but used to 
view them reclining on a couch, at first through some nar- 
row apertures, but afterwards with the Podium} quite open, 
He was the first who instituted, 2 in imitation of the Greeks, 
a trial of skill in the three several exercises of music, 
wrestling, and horse-racing, to be performed at Rome 
every five years, and which he called Neronia. Upon the 
dedication of his bath 3 and gymnasium, he furnished the 
senate and the equestrian order with oil. He appointed 
as judges of the trial men of consular rank, chosen by lot, 
who sat with the praetors. At this time he went down 
into the orchestra among the senators, and received the 
crown for the best performance in Latin prose and verse, 
for which several persons of the greatest merit contended, 
but they unanimously yielded to him. The crown for the 
best performer on the harp, being likewise awarded to 
him by the judges, he devoutly saluted it, and ordered it 
to be carried to the statue of Augustus. In the gymnas- 
tic exercises, which he presented in the Septa, while they 

1 The Podium was part of the amphitheatre, near the orchestra, allotted 
to the senators, and the ambassadors of foreign nations ; and where also 
was the seat of the emperor, of the person who exhibited the games, 
and of the Vestal Virgins. It projected over the wall which surround- 
ed the area of the amphitheatre, and was raised between twelve and 
fifteen feet above it ; secured with a breast-work or parapet against the 
irruption of wild beasts. 

2 a. u. c. 813. 

3 The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, 
probably, incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander 
Severus; but no vestige of them remains. That the former were 
magnificent, we may infer from the verses of Martial : 

Quid Nerone pejus? 

Quid thermis melius Neronianis. — B. vii. ch. 34. 
What worse than Nero ? 
What better than his baths ? 



NERO. 359 

were preparing the great sacrifice of an ox, he shaved his 
beard for the first time, 1 and putting it up in a casket of 
gold studded with pearls of great price, consecrated it to 
Jupiter Capitolinus. He invited the Vestal Virgins to see 
the wrestlers perform, because, at Olympia, the priestesses 
of Ceres are allowed the privilege of witnessing that ex- 
hibition. 

XIII. Amongst the spectacles presented by him, the 
solemn entrance of Tiridates 2 into the city deserves to be 
mentioned. This personage, who was king of Armenia, 
he invited to Rome by very liberal promises. But being 
prevented by very unfavourable weather from showing 
him to the people upon the day fixed by proclamation, he 
took the first opportunity which occurred ; several cohorts 
being drawn up under arms, about the temples and in the 
forum, while he was seated on a curule chair on the ros- 
tra, in a triumphal dress, amidst the military standards, 
and ensigns. Upon Tiridates advancing towards him, on 
a stage made shelving for the purpose, he permitted him 
to throw himself at his feet, but quickly raised him with 
his right hand, and kissed him. The emperor then, at 
the king's request, took the turban from his head, and 
replaced it by a crown, whilst a person of pretorian rank 
proclaimed in Latin the words in which the prince ad- 
dressed the emperor as a suppliant. After this ceremony, 
the king was conducted to the theatre, where, after renew- 
ing his obeisance, Nero seated him on his right hand. 
Being then greeted by universal acclamation with the title 
of Emperor, and sending his laurel crown to the Capitol, 

1 Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the 
beard was marked with particular ceremony. It was usually in their 
twenty-first year, but the period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved 
at twenty ; Augustus at twenty-five. 

3 a. u. c. 819. See afterwards, c. xxx. 



360 * SUETONIUS. 

Nero shut the temple of the two-faced Janus, as though 
there now existed no war throughout the Roman empire. 

XIV. He filled the consulship four times: 1 the first for 
two months, the second and last for six, and the third for 
four ; the two intermediate ones he held successively, but 
the others after an interval of some years between them. 

XV. In the administration of justice, he scarcely ever 
gave his decision on the pleadings before the next day, 
and then in writing. His manner of hearing causes was 
not to allow any adjournment, but to dispatch them in 
order as they stood. When he withdrew to consult his 
assessors, he did not debate the matter openly with them ; 
but silently and privately reading over their opinions, 
which they gave separately in writing, he pronounced sen- 
tence from the tribunal according to his own view of the 
case, as if it was the opinion of the majority. For a long 
time he would not admit the sons of freedmen into the 
senate ; and those who had been admitted by former prin- 
ces, he excluded from all public offices. To supernumer- 
ary candidates he gave command in the legions, to com- 
fort them under the delay of their hopes. The consulship 
he commonly conferred for six months ; and one of the 
two consuls dying a little before the first of January, 
he substituted no one in his place ; disliking what had 
been formerly done for Caninius Rebilus on such an occa- 
sion, who was consul for one day only. He allowed the 
triumphal honours only to those who were of quaestorian 
rank, and to some of the equestrian order ; and bestowed 
them without regard to military service. And instead of 
the quaestors, whose office it properly was, he frequently 
ordered that the addresses, which he sent to the senate 
on certain occasions, should be read by the consuls. 

XVI. He devised a new style of building in the city, 
1 a. u. c. 808. 810. 811. 813. 



NERO. 361 

ordering piazzas to be erected before all houses, both in 
the streets and detached, to give facilities from their ter- 
races, in case of fire, for preventing it from spreading; 
and these he built at his own expense. He likewise de- 
signed to extend the city walls as far as Ostia, and bring 
the sea from thence by a canal into the old city. Many 
severe regulations and new orders were made in his time. 
A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were lim- 
ited to the Sportulae ; * and victualling-houses restrained 
from selling any dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, 
whereas before they sold all kinds of meat. He likewise 
inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people 
who held a new and impious 2 superstition. He forbad 
the revels of the charioteers, who had lonp- assumed a 

1 The Sportulce were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money 
were carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public en- 
tertainments at which food was distributed, or money given in lieu 
of it. 

2 " Superstitionis novae et maleficae," are the words of Suetonius; 
the latter conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas 
relates that a certain martyr cried out from his dungeon — ' l Ye have 
loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer and profane person." Tacitus 
calls the Christian religion "a foreign and deadly \exitiabilis\ super- 
stition," Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, 
" a depraved, wicked (or prava), and outrageous superstition." Epist. 
x. 97. 

Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the Ro- 
man Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the de- 
rision of the people ; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed 
to be torn to pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were cruci- 
fied, or condemned to be burnt ; and at night-fall served in place of 
lamps to lighten the darkness, Nero's own gardens being used for the 
spectacle. Annal. xv. 44. 

Traditions of the church place the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and 
Paul at Rome, under the reign of Nero. The legends are given by 
Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 
206, &c, with the notes and reference to the apocryphal works on 
which they are founded. 



362 SUETONIUS. 

licence to stroll about, and established for themselves a 
kind of prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a 
jest of it. The partisans of the rival theatrical perform- 
ers were banished, as well as the actors themselves. 

XVII. To prevent forgery, a method was then first in- 
vented, of having writings bored, run through three 
times with a thread, and then sealed. It was likewise 
provided that in wills, the two first pages, with only the 
testator's name upon them, should be presented blank to 
those who were to sign them as witnesses ; and that no 
one who wrote a will for another, should insert any leg- 
acy for himself. It was likewise ordained that clients 
should pay their advocates a certain reasonable fee, but 
nothing for the court, which was to be gratuitous, the 
charges for it being paid out of the public treasury ; that 
causes, the cognizance of which before belonged to the 
judges of the exchequer, should be transferred to the 
forum, and the ordinary tribunals ; and that all appeals 
from the judges should be made to the senate. 

XVIII. He never entertained the least ambition or 
hope of augmenting and extending the frontiers of the 
empire. On the contrary, he had thoughts of withdraw- 
ing the troops from Britain, and was only restrained from 
so doing by the fear of appearing to detract from the 
glory of his father. 1 All that he did was to reduce the 

1 Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. 
See c. xvii. of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius 
Paulinus, attacked Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and 
extirpated them with great cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen 
of the Iceni, who inhabited Derbyshire, were probably the cause of 
Nero's wishing to withdraw the legions; she having reduced London, 
Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy thousand of the 
Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length defeated 
by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit. 
Agrtc. xv. 1, xvi. 1 ; and Annal. xiv. 29. 



NERO. 363 

kingdom of Pontus, which was ceded to him by Polemon, 
and also the Alps, 1 upon the death of Cottius, into the 
form of a province. 

XIX. Twice only he undertook any foreign expeditions, 
one to Alexandria, and the other to Achaia ; but he aban- 
doned the prosecution of the former on the very day fixed 
for his departure, by being deterred both by ill omens, and 
the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the 
circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that of 
Vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe 
stuck fast ; and he was instantly seized with such a dim- 
ness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. 
In Achaia, he attempted to make a cut through the Isth- 
mus; 2 and, having made a speech encouraging his preto- 
rians to set about the work, on a signal given by sound of 
trumpet, he first broke ground with a spade, and carried 
off a basket full of earth upon his shoulders. He made 
preparations for an expedition to the Pass of the Caspian 
mountains ; 3 forming a new legion out of his late levies in 
Italy, of men all six feet high, which he called the phalanx 
of Alexander the Great. These transactions, in part un- 
exceptionable, and in part highly commendable, I have 

1 The dominions of Cottius embraced the valleys in the chain of the 
Alps, extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Ro- 
mans the Cottian Alps. See Tiberius, c. xxxvii. 

2 It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a navigable canal 
through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the circumnavigation of the 
southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan, which, even in 
our days, has its perils. See Julius Cesar, c. xliv. and Caligula, c. 
xxi. 

3 Caspice Porta; so called from the difficulties opposed by the narrow 
and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the country washed 
by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between the Caspian 
and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of Teflis, and is 
frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and Circassian 
tribes. 



364 SUETONIUS. 

brought into one view, in order to separate them from the 
scandalous and criminal part of his conduct, of which I 
shall now give an account. 

XX. Among the other liberal arts which he was taught 
in his youth, he was instructed in music ; and immedi- 
ately after his advancement to the empire, he sent for 
Terpnus, a performer upon the harp, 1 who flourished at 
that time with the highest reputation. Sitting with him 
for several days following, as he sang and played after 
supper, until late at night, he began by degrees to prac- 
tise upon the instrument himself. Nor did he omit any 
of those expedients which artists in music adopt, for the 
preservation and improvement of their voices. He would 
lie upon his back with a sheet of lead upon his breast, 
clear his stomach and bowels by vomits and clysters, and 
forbear the eating of fruits, or food prejudicial to the voice. 
Encouraged by his proficiency, though his voice was nei- 
ther loud nor clear, he was desirous of appearing upon 
the stage, frequently repeating amongst his friends a 
Greek proverb to this effect : " that no one had any regard 
for music which they never heard." Accordingly, he made 
his first public appearance at Naples ; and although the 
theatre quivered with the sudden shock of an earthquake, 
he did not desist, until he had finished the piece of music 
he had begun. He played and sung in the same place 
several times, and for several days together ; taking only 
now and then a little respite to refresh his voice. Impa- 
tient of retirement, it was his custom to go from the bath 
to the theatre ; and after dining in the orchestra, amidst 
a crowded assembly of the people, he promised them in 
Greek, 2 " that after he had drank a little, he would give 

1 Citharce.dus : the word signifies a vocalist, who with his singing gave 
an accompaniment on the harp. 

2 It has already been observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and 
consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue. 



NERO. 365 

them a tune which would make their ears tingle." Being 
highly pleased with the songs that were sung in his praise 
by some Alexandrians belonging to the fleet just arrived 
at Naples, 1 he sent for more of the like singers from 
Alexandria. At the same time, he chose young men of 
the equestrian order, and above five thousand robust 
young fellows from the common people, on purpose to 
learn various kinds of applause, called bornbi, imbrices, 
and testcz? which they were to practise in his favour, 
whenever he performed. They were divided into several 
parties, and were remarkable for their fine heads of hair, 
and were extremely well dressed, with rings upon their 
left hands. The leaders of these bands had salaries of 
forty thousand sesterces allowed them. 

XXI. At Rome also, being extremely proud of his 
singing, he ordered the games called Neronia to be cele- 
brated before the time fixed for their return. All now 
becoming importunate to hear " his heavenly voice," he 
informed them, " that he would gratify those who desired 
it at the gardens." But the soldiers then on guard se- 
conding the voice of the people, he promised to comply 
with their request immediately, and with all his heart. 
He instantly ordered his name to be entered upon the list 
of musicians who proposed to contend, and having 
thrown his lot into the urn among the rest, took his turn, 
and entered, attended by the prefects of the pretorian 
cohorts bearing his harp, and followed by the military tri- 
bunes, and several of his intimate friends. After he had 
taken his station, and made the usual prelude, he com- 

1 See Augustus, c. xciv. 

5 Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in 
the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees ; the second 
from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs ; and the third from the 
tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together. 



3 66 SUETONIUS. 

manded Cluvius Rufus, a man of consular rank, to pro- 
claim in the theatre, that he intended to sing the story of 
Niobe. This he accordingly did, and continued it until 
nearly ten o'clock, but deferred the disposal of the crown, 
and the remaining part of the solemnity, until the next 
year ; that he might have more frequent opportunities of 
performing. But that being too long, he could not re- 
frain from often appearing as a public performer during 
the interval. He made no scruple of exhibiting on the 
stage, even in the spectacles presented to the people by 
private persons, and was offered by one of the praetors, 
no less than a million of sesterces for his services. He 
likewise sang tragedies in a mask ; the visors of the he- 
roes and gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, 
being formed into a resemblance of his own face, and that 
of any woman he was in love with. Amongst the rest, 
he sung " Canace in Labour," 1 " Orestes the Murderer of 
his Mother," " GEdipus Blinded," and " Hercules Mad." 
In the last tragedy, it is said that a young sentinel, posted 
at the entrance of the stage, seeing him in a prison dress 
and bound with fetters, as the fable of the play required, 
ran to his assistance. 

XXII. He had from his childhood an extravagant pas- 
sion for horses ; and his constant talk was of the Circen- 
sian races, notwithstanding it was prohibited him. La- 
menting once, among his fellow-pupils, the case of a 
charioteer of the green party, who was dragged round 
the circus at the tail of his chariot, and being reprimand- 
ed by his tutor for it, he pretended that he was talking of 

1 Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous in- 
tercourse with her brother having been detected, in consequence of the 
cries of the infant of which she was delivered, she killed herself. It 
was a joke at Rome, that some one asking, when Nero was performing 
in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied, " He is labour- 
ing in child-birth. ' ' 



NERO. 367 

Hector. In the beginning of his reign, he used to amuse 
himself daily with chariots drawn by four horses, made of 
ivory, upon a table,. He attended at all the lesser exhi- 
bitions in the circus, at first privately, but at last openly ; 
so that nobody ever doubted of his presence on any par- 
ticular day. Nor did he conceal his desire to have the 
number of the prizes doubled ; so that the races being in- 
creased accordingly, the diversion continued until a late 
hour; the leaders of parties refusing now to bring out 
their companies for any time less than the whole day. 
Upon this, he took a fancy for driving the chariot himself, 
and that even publicly. Having made his first experi- 
ment in the gardens, amidst crowds of slaves and other 
rabble, he at length performed in the view of all the peo- 
ple, in the Circus Maximus, whilst one of his freedmen 
dropped the napkin in the place where the magistrates 
used to give the signal. Not satisfied with exhibiting 
various specimens of his skill in those arts at Rome, he 
went over to Achaia, as has been already said, princi- 
pally for this purpose. The several cities, in which sol- 
emn trials of musical skill used to be publicly held, had 
resolved to send him the crowns belonging to those who 
bore away the prize. These he accepted so graciously, 
that he not only gave the deputies who brought them an 
immediate audience, but even invited them to his table. 
Being requested by some of them to sing at supper, and 
prodigiously applauded, he said; " the Greeks were the 
only people who had an ear for music, and were the only 
good judges of him and his attainments." Without de- 
lay he commenced his journey, and on his arrival at Cas- 
siope, 1 exhibited his first musical performance before the 
altar of Jupiter Cassius. 

1 A town in Corcyra, now Corfu. There was a sea-port of the same 
name in Epirus. 



368 SUETONIUS. 

XXIII. He afterwards appeared at the celebration of 
all public games in Greece: for such as fell in different 
years, he brought within the compass of one, and some 
he ordered to be celebrated a second time in the same 
year. At Olympia, likewise, contrary to custom, he ap- 
pointed a public performance of music : and that he might 
meet with no interruption in this employment, when he 
was informed by his freedman Helius, that affairs at Rome 
required his presence, he wrote to him in these words : 
" Though now all your hopes and wishes are for my 
speedy return, yet you ought rather to advise and hope 
that I may come back with a character worthy of Nero." 
During the time of his musical performance, nobody was 
allowed to stir out of the theatre upon any account, how- 
ever necessary ; insomuch, that it is said some women 
with child were delivered there. Many of the spectators 
being quite wearied with hearing and applauding him, 
because the town gates were shut, slipped privately over 
the walls ; or counterfeiting themselves dead, were car- 
ried out for their funeral. With what extreme anxiety he 
engaged in these contests, with what keen desire to bear 
away the prize, and with how much awe of the judges, is 
scarcely to be believed. As if his adversaries had been 
on a level with himself, he would watch them narrowly, 
defame them privately, and sometimes, upon meeting 
them, rail at them in very scurrilous language ; or bribe 
them, if they weee better performers than himself, He 
always addressed the judges with the most profound re- 
verence before he began, telling them, " he had done all 
things that were necessary, by way of preparation, but that 
the issue of the approaching trial was in the hand of 
fortune; and that they, as wise and skilful men, ought to 
exclude from their judgment things merely accidental." 
Upon their encouraging him to have a good heart,, he 



NERO. 369 

went off with more assurance, but not entirely free from 
anxiety ; interpreting the silence and modesty of some of 
them into sourness and ill-nature, and saying that he was 
suspicious of them. 

XXIV. In these contests, he adhered so strictly to the 
rules, that he never durst spit, nor wipe the sweat from 
his forehead in any other way than with his sleeve. Hav- 
ing, in the performance of a tragedy, dropped his sceptre, 
and not quickly recovering it, he was in a great fright, lest 
he should be set aside for the miscarriage, and could not 
regain his assurance, until an actor who stood by swore 
he was certain it had not been observed in the midst of 
the acclamations and exultations of the people. When 
the prize was adjudged to him, he always proclaimed it 
himself; and even entered the list with the heralds. That 
no memory or the least monument might remain of any 
other victor in the sacred Grecian games, he ordered all 
their statues and pictures to be pulled down, dragged 
away with hooks, and thrown into the common sewers. 
He drove the chariot with various numbers of horses, and 
at the Olympic games with no fewer than ten ; though, in 
a poem of his, he had reflected upon Mithridates for that 
innovation, Being thrown out of his chariot, he was 
again replaced, but could not retain his seat, and was 
obliged to give it up, before he reached the goal, but was 
crowned notwithstanding. On his departure, he declared 
the whole province a free country, and conferred upon the 
judges in the several games the freedom of Rome, with 
large sums of money. All these favours he proclaimed 
himself with his own voice, from the middle of the Sta- 
dium, during the solemnity of the Isthmian games. 

XXV. On his return from Greece, arriving at Naples, 
because he had commenced his career as a public per- 
former in that city, he made his entrance in a chariot 

2 4 



370 SUETONIUS. 

drawn by white horses through a breach in the city-wall, 
according to the practice of those who were victorious in 
the sacred Grecian games. In the same manner he en- 
tered Antium, Alba, and Rome. He made his entry into 
the city riding in the same chariot in which Augustus had 
triumphed, in a purple tunic, and a cloak embroidered 
with golden stars, having on his head the crown won at 
Olympia, and in his right hand that which was given him 
at the Parthian games : the rest being carried in a pro- 
cession before him, with inscriptions denoting the places 
where they had been won, from whom, and in what plays 
or musical performances ; whilst a train followed him with 
loud acclamations, crying out, that " they were the empe- 
ror's attendants, and the soldiers of his triumph." Having 
then caused an arch of the Circus Maximus 1 to be taken 

1 The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by Suetonius, was so 
called because it was the largest of all the circuses in and about Rome. 
Rudely constructed of timber by Tarquinius Drusus, and enlarged and 
improved with the growing fortunes of the republic, under the emperors 
it became a most superb building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, 
and surrounded it with a canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to 
protect the spectators against danger from the chariots during the races. 
Claudius (c. xxi.) rebuilt the carceres with marble, and gilded the metce. 
This vast centre of attraction to the Roman people, in the games of 
which religion, politics, and amusement, were combined, was, accord- 
ing to Pliny, three stadia (of 625 feet) long, and one broad, and held 
260,000 spectators; so that Juvenal says, 

"Totam hodie Roman circus capit." — Sat. xi. 195. 

This poetical exaggeration is applied by Addison to the Colosseum. 
" That on its public shews unpeopled Rome." — Letter to Lord Halifax. 

The area of the Circus Maximus occupied the hollow between the 
Palatine and Aventine hills, so that it was overlooked by the imperial 
palace, from which the emperors had so full a view of it, that they could 
from that height give the signals for commencing the races. Few frag- 
ments of it remain ; but from the circus of Caracalla, which is better 
preserved, a tolerably good idea of the ancient circus may be formed. 
For details of its parts, and the mode in which the sports were con- 
ducted, see Burton's Antiquities, p. 309, &c. 



NERO. 371 

down, he passed through the breach, as also through the 
Velabrum 1 and the forum, to the Palatine hill and the 
temple of Apollo. Every where as he marched along, 
victims were slain, whilst the streets were strewed with 
saffron, and birds, chaplets, and sweetmeats scattered 
abroad. He suspended the sacred crowns in his chamber, 
about his beds, and caused statues of himself to be erected 
in the attire of a harper, and had his likeness stamped 
upon the coin in the same dress. After this period, he 
was so far from abating any thing of his application to 
music, that, for the preservation of his voice, he never 
addressed the soldiers but by messages, or with some per- 
son to deliver his speeches for him, when he thought fit to 
make his appearance amongst them. Nor did he ever do 
any thing either in jest or earnest, without a voice-master 
standing by him to caution him against overstraining his 
vocal organs, and to apply a handkerchief to his mouth 
when he did. He offered his friendship, or avowed open 
enmity to many, according as they were lavish or sparing 
in giving him their applause. 

XXVI. Petulancy, lewdness, luxury, avarice, and cru- 
elty, he practised at first with reserve and in private, as if 
prompted to them only by the folly of youth; but, even 
then, the world was of opinion that they were the faults 
of his nature, and not of his age. After it was dark, he 
used to enter the taverns disguised in a cap or a wig, and 
ramble about the streets in sport, which was not void of 
mischief. He used to beat those he met coming home 
from supper; and, if they made any resistance, would 
wound them, and throw them into the common-sewer. 
He broke open and robbed shops; establishing an auction 
at home for selling his booty. In the scuffles which took 
place on those occasions, he often ran the hazard of los- 

1 The Velabrum was a street in Rome. See Julius C/esar, c. xxxvii. 



372 SUETONIUS. 

ing his eyes, and even his life; being beaten almost to 
death by a senator, for handling his wife indecently. After 
this adventure, he never again ventured abroad at that 
time of night, without some tribunes following him at a little 
distance. In the day-time he would be carried to the thea- 
tre incognito in a litter, placing himself upon the upper 
part of the proscenium, where he not only witnessed the 
quarrels which arose on account of the performances, but 
also encouraged them. When they came to blows, and 
stones and pieces of broken benches began to fly about, 
he threw them plentifully amongst the people, and once 
even broke a praetor's head. 

XXVII. His vices gaining strength by degrees, he laid 
aside his jocular amusements, and all disguise ; breaking 
out into enormous crimes, without the least attempt to 
conceal them. His revels were prolonged from mid-day 
to midnight, while he was frequently refreshed by warm 
baths, and, in the summer time, by such as were cooled 
with snow. He often supped in public, in the Naumachia, 
with the sluices shut, or in the Campus Martius, or the 
Circus Maximus, being waited upon at table by common 
prostitutes of the town, and Syrian strumpets and glee- 
girls. As often as he went down the Tiber to Ostia, or 
coasted through the gulf of Baiae, booths furnished as 
brothels and eating-houses, were erected along the shore 
and river banks ; before which stood matrons, who, like 
bawds and hostesses, allured him to land. It was also his 
custom to invite himself to supper with his friends; at one 
of which was expended no less than four millions of sester- 
ces in chaplets, and at another something more in roses. 

XXVIII. Besides the debauch of married women, he 
committed a rape upon Rubria, a Vestal Virgin. He was 
upon the point of marrying Acte, * his freedwoman, hav- 

1 Acte was a slave who had been bought in Asia, whose beauty so 



NERO. 373 

ing suborned some men of consular rank to swear that 
she was of royal descent.* * * * 

*Jj« •$• *f9 *$• «j» 

That he entertained an incestuous passion for his mother, 1 
but was deterred by her enemies, for fear that this haughty 
and overbearing woman should, by her compliance, get 
him entirely into her power, and govern in every thing, 
was universally believed ; especially after he had introduced 
amongst his concubines a strumpet, who was reported to 
have a strong resemblance to Agrippina. 2 * 

XXX. He thought there was no other use of riches 
and money than to squander them away profusely ; re- 
garding all those as sordid wretches who kept their 
expenses within due bounds ; and extolling those as truly 
noble and generous souls, who lavished away and wasted 
all they possessed. He praised and admired his uncle 
Caius 3 upon no account more, than for squandering in a 
short time the vast treasure left him by Tiberius. Accord- 
ingly, he was himself extravagant and profuse, beyond all 
bounds. He spent upon Tiridates eight hundred thousand 
sesterces a day, a sum almost incredible ; and at his de- 
parture, presented him with upwards of a million. 4 He 

captivated Nero that he redeemed her, and became greatly attached to 
her. She is supposed to be the concubine of Nero mentioned by St. 
Chrysostom, as having been converted by St. Paul during his residence 
at Rome. The Apostle speaks of the " Saints in Caesar's household." 
Phil. iv. 22. 

1 It is said that the advances were made by Agrippina, with flagrant 
indecency, to secure her power over him. See Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 2, 3. 

2 01im etiam, quoties lecticacummatreveheretur, libidinatum inceste, 
ac maculis vestis proditum, affirmant. 

3 The emperor Caligula, who was the brother of Nero's mother, 
Agrippina. 

4 See before, c. xiii. Tiridates was nine months in Rome or the 
neighbourhood, and was entertained the whole time at the emperor's 
expense. 



374 SUETONIUS. 

likewise bestowed upon Menecrates the harper, and Spicil- 
lus a gladiator, the estates and houses of men who had 
received the honour of a triumph. He enriched the usurer 
Cercopithecus Panerotes with estates both in town and 
country ; and gave him a funeral, in pomp and magnifi- 
cence little inferior to that of princes. He never wore the 
same garment twice. He has been known to stake four 
hundred thousand sesterces on a throw of the dice. It was 
his custom to fish with a golden net, drawn by silken cords 
of purple and scarlet. It is said, that he never travelled 
with less than a thousand baggage-carts ; the mules being all 
shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets 
of the finest Canusian cloth, 1 with a numerous train of 
footmen, and troops of Mazacans, 2 with bracelets on their 
arms, and mounted upon horses in splendid trappings. 

XXXI. In nothing was he more prodigal than in his 
buildings. He completed his palace by continuing it from 
the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, calling the building at 
first only " The Passage," but after it was burnt down and 
rebuilt, "The Golden House." 3 Of its dimensions and 

1 Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of 
the river Aufidus, celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by 
Pliny, and retained its reputation for the manufacture in the middle 
ages, as we find in Ordericus Vitalis. 

2 The Mazacans were an African tribe from the deserts in the interior, 
famous for their spirited barbs, their powers of endurance, and their 
skill in throwing the dart. 

3 The Palace of the Caesars, on the Palatine hill, was enlarged by 
Augustus from the dimensions of a private house (see Augustus, cc. 
xxix., lvii.)- Tiberius made some additions to it, and Caligula ex- 
tended it to the forum (Caligula, c. xxxi.). Tacitus gives a similar 
account with that of our author of the extent and splendour of the 
works of Claudius. Annal. xv. c. xlii. Reaching from the Palatine 
to the Esquiline hill, it covered all the intermediate space, where the 
Colosseum now stands. We shall find that it was still further enlarged 
by Domitian, c. xv. of his life in the present work. 



NERO. 375 

furniture, it may be sufficient to say thus much : the 
porch was so high that there stood in it a colossal statue 
of himself a hundred and twenty feet in height ; and the 
space included in it was so ample, that it had triple porti- 
cos a mile in length, and a lake like a sea, surrounded 
with buildings which had the appearance of a city. With- 
in its area were corn fields, vineyards, pastures, and 
woods, containing a vast number of animals of various 
kinds, both wild and tame. In other parts it was entirely 
over-laid with gold, and adorned with jewels and mother 
of pearl. The supper rooms were vaulted, and compart- 
ments of the ceilings, inlaid with ivory, were made to re- 
volve, and scatter flowers ; while they contained pipes 
which shed unguents upon the guests. The chief ban- 
queting room was circular, and revolved perpetually, 
night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial 
bodies. The baths were supplied with water from the sea 
and the Albula. Upon the dedication of this magnificent 
house after it was finished, all he said in approval of it 
was, " that he had now a dwelling fit for a man." He 
commenced making a pond for the reception of all the 
hot springs from Baiae, which he designed to have contin- 
ued from Misenum to the Avernian lake, in a conduit, en- 
closed in galleries ; and also a canal from Avernum to 
Ostia, that ships might pass from one to the other, with- 
out a sea voyage. The length of the proposed canal was 
one hundred and sixty miles ; and it was intended to be 
of breadth sufficient to permit ships with five banks of 
oars to pass each other. For the execution of these de- 
signs, he ordered all prisoners, in every part of the em- 
pire, to be brought to Italy; and that even those who 
were convicted of the most heinous crimes, in lieu of any 
other sentence, should be condemned to work at them. 
He was encouraged to all this wild and enormous profu- 



376 SUETONIUS. 

sion, not only by the great revenue of the empire, but by 
the sudden hopes given him of an immense hidden trea- 
sure, which queen Dido, upon her flight from Tyre, had 
brought with her to Africa. This, a Roman knight pre- 
tended to assure him, upon good grounds, was still hid 
there in some deep caverns, and might with a little labour 
be recovered. 

XXXII. But being disappointed in his expectations of 
this resource, and reduced to such difficulties, for want of 
money, that he was obliged to defer paying his troops, 
and the rewards due to the veterans ; he resolved upon 
supplying his necessities by means of false accusations 
and plunder. In the first place, he ordered, that if any 
freedman, without sufficient reason, bore the name of the 
family to which he belonged ; the half, instead of three 
fourths, of his estate should be brought into the exche- 
quer at his decease : also that the estates of all such per- 
sons as had not in their wills been mindful of their prince, 
should be confiscated ; and that the lawyers who had 
drawn or dictated such wills, should be liable to a fine. 
He ordained likewise, that all words and actions, upon 
which any informer could ground a prosecution, should 
be deemed treason. He demanded an equivalent for the 
crowns which the cities of Greece had at any time offered 
him in the solemn games. Having forbad any one to use 
the colours of amethyst and Tyrian purple, he privately 
sent a person to sell a few ounces of them upon the day 
of the Nundinse, and then shut up all the merchants' 
shops, on the pretext that his edict had been violated. It 
is said, that, as he was playing and singing in the theatre, 
observing a married lady dressed in the purple which he 
had prohibited, he pointed her out to his procurators ; 
upon which she was immediately dragged out of her seat, 
and not only stripped of her clothes, but her property. 



NERO. 377 

He never nominated a person to any office without say- 
ing to him, " You know what I want ; and let us take care 
that nobody has anything he can call his own." At last 
he rifled many temples of the rich offerings with which 
they were stored, and melted down all the gold and silver 
statues, and amongst them those of the penates, 1 which 
Galba afterwards restored. l^ 

XXXIH. He began the practice of parricide and mur- 
der with Claudius himself; for although he was not the 
contriver of his death, he was privy to the plot. Nor did 
he make any secret of it ; but used afterwards to com- 
mend, in a Greek proverb, mushrooms as food fit for the 
gods, because Claudius had been poisoned with them. 
He traduced his memory, both by word and deed in the 
grossest manner ; one while charging him with folly, an- 
other while with cruelty. For he used to say by way of 
jest, that he had ceased morari' 1 amongst men, pronoun- 
cing the first syllable long ; and treated as null many of 
his decrees and ordinances, as made by a doting old 
blockhead. He enclosed the place where his body was 
burnt with only a low wall of rough masonry. He at- 
tempted to poison Britannicus, as much out of envy be- 
cause he had a sweeter voice, as from apprehension of 
what might ensue from the respect which the people en- 

1 The penates were worshipped in the innermost part of the house, 
which was called penetralia. There were likewise publici penates, wor- 
shipped in the Capitol, and supposed to be the guardians of the city 
and temples. Some have thought that the lares and penates were the 
same; and they appear to be sometimes confounded. They were, 
however, different. The penates were reputed to be of divine origin ; 
the lares, of human. Certain persons were admitted to the worship of 
the lares, who were not to that of the penates. The latter, as has been 
already said, were worshipped only in the innermost part of the house, 
but the former also in the public roads, in the camp, and on the sea. 

2 A play upon the Greek word /nopdc, signifying a fool, while the 
Latin morari, from moror, means "to dwell," or "continue." 



378 SUETONIUS. 

tertained for his father's memory. He employed for this 
purpose a woman named Locusta, who had been a wit- 
ness against some persons guilty of like practices. But 
the poison she gave him, working more slowly than he 
expected, and only causing a purge, he sent for the wo- 
man, and beat her with his own hand, charging her with 
administering an antidote instead of poison ; and upon 
her alleging in excuse, that she had given Britannicus but 
a gentle mixture in order to prevent suspicion, " Think 
you/' said he, "that I am afraid of the Julian law; " and 
obliged her to prepare, in his own chamber and before 
his eyes, as quick and strong a dose as possible. This he 
tried upon a kid : but the animal lingering for five hours 
before it expired, he ordered her to go to work again ; 
and when she had done, he gave the poison to a slave, 
who dying immediately, he commanded the poison to be 
brought into the eating-room and given to Britannicus, 
while he was at supper with him. The prince had no 
sooner tasted it than he sunk on the floor, Nero mean- 
while pretending to the guests, that it was only a fit of 
the falling sickness, to which, he said, he was subject. 
He buried him the following day, in a mean and hurried 
way, during violent storms of rain. He gave Locusta a 
pardon, and rewarded her with a great estate in land, 
placing some disciples with her, to be instructed in her 
trade. 

XXXIV. His mother being used to make strict inquiry 
into what he said or did, and to reprimand him with the 
freedom of a parent, he was so much offended, that he 
endeavoured to expose her to public resentment, by fre- 
quently pretending a resolution to quit the government, 
and retire to Rhodes. Soon afterwards, he deprived her 
of all honour and power, took from her the guard of Ro- 
man and German soldiers, banished her from the palace 



3 1 " 



NERO. 379 



and from his society, and persecuted her in every way he 
could contrive ; employing persons to harass her when at 
Rome with law-suits, and to disturb her in her retirement 
from town with the most scurrilous and abusive language, 
following her about by land and sea. But being terrified 
with her menaces and violent spirit, he resolved upon her 
destruction, and thrice attempted it by poison. Finding, 
however, that she had previously secured herself by anti- 
dotes, he contrived machinery, by which the floor over 
her bed-chamber might be made to fall upon her while 
she was asleep in the night. This design miscarrying 
likewise, through the little caution used by those who 
were in the secret, his next stratagem was to construct a 
ship which could be easily shivered, in hopes of destroy- 
ing her either by drowning, or by the deck above her 
cabin crushing her in its fall. Accordingly, under colour 
of a pretended reconciliation, he wrote her an extremely 
affectionate letter, inviting her to Baiae, to celebrate with 
him the festival of Minerva. He had given private or- 
ders to the captains of the galleys which were to attend 
her, to shatter to pieces the ship in which she had come, 
by falling foul of it, but in such manner that it might ap- 
pear to be done accidentally. He prolonged the enter- 
tainment, for the more convenient opportunity of execut- 
ing the plot in the night ; and at her return for Bauli, 1 
instead of the old ship which had conveyed her to Baiae, 
he offered that which he had contrived for her destruction. 
He attended her to the vessel in a very cheerful mood, 
and, at parting with her, kissed her breasts ; after which 
he sat up very late in the night, waiting with great anxiety 
to learn the issue of his project. But receiving informa- 
tion that everything had fallen out contrary to his wish, 
and that she had saved herself by swimming, — not know- 

1 A small port between the gulf of Baiae and cape Misenum. 



3 8o SUETONIUS. 

ing what course to take, upon her freedman, Lucius Ager- 
inus, bringing word, with great joy, that she was safe and 
well, he privately dropped a poniard by him. He then 
commanded the freedman to be seized and put in chains, 
under pretence of his having been employed by his mother 
to assassinate him; at the same time ordering her to be put 
to death, and giving out, that, to avoid punishment for her 
intended crime, she had laid violent hands upon herself. 
Other circumstances, still more horrible, are related on 
good authority ; as that he went to view her corpse, and 
handling her limbs, pointed out some blemishes, and com- 
mended other points; and that, growing thirsty during 
the survey, he called for drink. Yet he was never after- 
wards able to bear the stings of his own conscience for 
this atrocious act, although encouraged by the congratu- 
latory addresses of the army, the senate, and people. He 
frequently affirmed that he was haunted by his mother's 
ghost, and persecuted with the whips and burning torches 
of the Furies. Nay, he attempted by magical rites to 
bring up her ghost from below, and soften her rage 
against him. When he was in Greece, he durst not at- 
tend the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, at the 
initiation of which, impious and wicked persons are 
warned by the voice of the herald from approaching the 
rites. 1 Besides the murder of his mother, he had been 
guilty of that of his aunt ; for, being obliged to keep her 
bed in consequence of a complaint in her bowels, he paid 
her a visit, and she, being then advanced in years, strok- 
ing his downy chin, in the tenderness of affection, said to 
him : " May I but live to see the day when this is shaved 
for the first time, 2 and I shall then die contented." He 

^rom whence the " Procul, O procul este profani ! " of the poet ; 
a warning which was transferred to the Christian mysteries. 
2 See before, c. xii. 



NERO. 381 

turned, however, to those about him, made a jest of it, 
saying, that he would have his beard immediately taken 
off, and ordered the physicians to give her more violent 
purgatives. He seized upon her estate before she had 
expired ; suppressing her will, that he might enjoy the 
whole himself. [/ 

XXXV. He had, besides Octavia, two other wives : 
Poppaea Sabina, whose father had borne the office of 
quaestor, and who had been married before to a Roman 
knight: and, after her, Statilia Messalina, great-grand- 
daughter of Taurus, 1 who was twice consul, and received 
the honour of a triumph. To obtain possession of her, 
he put to death her husband, Atticus Vestinus, who was 
then consul. He soon became disgusted with Octavia, 
and ceased from having any intercourse with her; and 
being censured by his friends for it, he replied, " She ought 
to be satisfied with having the rank and appendages of 
his wife." Soon afterwards, he made several attempts, 
but in vain, to strangle her, and then divorced her for 
barrenness. But the people, disapproving of the divorce, 
and making severe comments upon it, he also banished 
her. 2 At last he put her to death, upon a charge of adul- 
tery, so impudent and false, that, when all those who were 
put to the torture positively denied their knowledge of it, 
he suborned his pedagogue, Anicetus, to affirm, that he 
had secretly intrigued with and debauched her. He mar- 
ried Poppaea twelve days after the divorce of Octavia, 3 

1 Statilius Taurus, who lived in the time of Augustus, and built the 
amphitheatre called after his name. Augustus, c. xxiv. He is men- 
tioned by Horace, Epist. i. v. 4. 

2 Octavia was first sent away to Campania, under a guard of soldiers, 
and after being recalled, in consequence of the remonstrances of the 
people, by whom she was beloved, Nero banished her to the island of 
Pandataria. 

3 A. U. C. 813. 



382 SUETONIUS. 

and entertained a great affection for her ; but, neverthe- 
less, killed her with a kick which he gave her when she 
was big with child, and in bad health, only because she 
found fault with him for returning late from driving his 
chariot. He had by her a daughter, Claudia Augusta, 
who died an infant. There was no person at all connected 
with him who escaped his deadly and unjust cruelty. Under 
pretence of her being engaged in a plot against him, he 
put to death Antonia, Claudius's daughter, who refused to 
marry him after the death of Poppaea. In the same way, 
he destroyed all who were allied to him either by blood or 
marriage ; amongst whom was young Aulus Plautinus. 

^:****** # 

His step-son, Rufinus Crispinus, Poppaea's son, though a 
minor, he ordered to be drowned in the sea, while he was 
fishing, by his own slaves, because he was reported to act 
frequently amongst his play-fellows the part of a general 
or an emperor. He banished Tuscus, his nurse's son, for 
presuming, when he was procurator of Egypt, to wash in 
the baths which had been constructed in expectation of his 
own coming. Seneca, his preceptor, he forced to kill him- 
self, 1 though upon his desiring leave to retire, and offering 
to surrender his estate, he solemnly swore, " that there 
was no foundation for his suspicions, and that he would 
perish himself sooner than hurt him." Having promised 
Burrhus, the pretorian prefect, a remedy for a swelling in 
his throat, he sent him poison. Some old rich freedmen 
of Claudius, who had formerly not only promoted his 
adoption, but were also instrumental to his advancement 

1 Seneca was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Caius Piso. 
Tacitus furnishes some interesting details of the circumstances under 
which the philosopher calmly submitted to his fate, which was an- 
nounced to him when at supper with his friends, at his villa, near 
Rome. — Tacitus, b. xiv. xv. 




SENECA. 



' 



NERO. 383 

to the empire, and had been his governors, he took off 
by poison given them in their meat or drink. 

XXXVI. Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against 
those who were not of his family. A blazing star, which 
is vulgarly supposed to portend destruction to kings and 
princes, appeared above the horizon several nights suc- 
cessively. * He felt great anxiety on account of this 
phenomenon, as being informed fcy one Babilus, an astro- 
loger, that princes were used to expiate such omens by 
the sacrifice of illustrious persons, and so avert the danger 
foreboded to their own persons, by bringing it on the 
heads of their chief men, he resolved on the destruction 
of the principal nobility in Rome. He was the more en- 
couraged to this, because he had some plausible pretence 
for carrying it into execution, from the discovery of two 
conspiracies against him ; the former and more dangerous 
of which was that formed by Piso, 2 and discovered at 
Rome; the other was that of Vinicius, 3 at Beneventum. 
The conspirators were brought to their trials loaded with 
triple fetters. Some ingenuously confessed the charge ; 
others avowed that they thought the design against his 
life an act of favour for which he was obliged to them, as 
it was impossible in any other way than by death to relieve 
a person rendered infamous by crimes of the greatest 
enormity. The children of those who had been condemned, 
were banished the city, and afterwards either poisoned or 
starved to death. It is asserted that some of them, with 
their tutors, and the slaves who carried their satchels, 

1 This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which Clau- 
dius died, is described by Seneca, Natural. Qucest. VII. c. xvii, and xix. 
and by Pliny, II, c. xxxv. 

2 See Tacitus, AnnaL xv. 48 — 55. 

3 The sixteenth book of Tacitus, which would probably have given 
an account of the Vinician conspiracy, is lost. It is shortly noticed by 
Plutarch. 



384 SUETONIUS. 

were all poisoned together at one dinner ; and others not 
suffered to seek their daily bread. 

XXXVII. From this period he butchered, without dis- 
tinction or quarter, all whom his caprice suggested as 
objects for his cruelty; and upon the most frivolous pre- 
tences. To mention only a few : Salvidienus Orfitus was 
accused of letting out three taverns attached to his house 
in the forum to some cities for the use of their deputies at 
Rome. The charge against Cassius Longinus, a lawyer 
who had lost his sight, was, that he kept amongst the busts 
of his ancestors that of Caius Cassius, who was concerned 
in the death of Julius Caesar. The only charge objected 
against Paetus Thrasea was, that he had a melancholy cast 
of features, and looked like a school-master. He allowed 
but one hour to those whom he obliged to kill themselves ; 
and, to prevent delay, he sent them physicians " to aire 
them immediately, if they lingered beyond that time ;" for 
so he called bleeding them to death. There was at that 
time an Egyptian of a most voracious appetite, who would 
digest raw flesh, or any thing else that was given him. It 
was credibly reported, that the emperor was extremely 
desirous of furnishing him with living men to tear and 
devour. Being elated with his great success in the perpe- 
tration of crimes, he declared, " that no prince before him- 
self ever knew the extent of his power." He threw out 
strong intimations that he would not even spare the sena- 
tors who survived, but would entirely extirpate that order, 
and put the provinces and armies into the hands of the 
Roman knights and his own freedmen. It is certain that 
he never gave or vouchsafed to allow any one the cus- 
tomary kiss, either on entering or departing, or even re- 
turned a salute. And at the inauguration of a work, the 
cut through the Isthmus, 1 he, with a loud voice, amidst the 
1 See before, c. xix. 



NERO. 385 

assembled multitude, uttered a prayer, that " the under- 
taking might prove fortunate for himself and the Roman 
people," without taking the smallest notice of the senate. 
XXXVIII. He spared, moreover, neither the people of 
Rome, nor the capital of the country. Somebody in con- 
versation saying — 

When I am dead let fire devour the world. — 
" Nay," said he, "let it be while I am living" [ti*oT> £5*™?"]. 
And he acted accordingly ; for, pretending to be disgusted 
with the old buildings, and the narrow and winding streets, 
he set the city on fire so openly, that many of consular 
rank caught his own household servants on their property 
with tow, and torches in their hands, but durst not meddle 
with them. There being near his Golden House some 
granaries, the site of which he exceedingly coveted, they 
were battered as if with machines of war, and set on fire, 
the walls being built of stone. During six days and seven 
nights this terrible devastation continued, the people being 
obliged to fly to the tombs and monuments for lodging and 
shelter. Meanwhile, a vast number of stately buildings, 
the houses of generals celebrated in former times, and 
even then still decorated with the spoils of war, were laid 
in ashes ; as well as the temples of the gods, which had 
been vowed and dedicated by the kings of Rome, and af- 
terwards in the Punic and Gallic wars : in short, every- 
thing that was remarkable and worthy to be seen which 
time had spared. 1 This fire he beheld from a tower in the 
house of Maecenas, and, " being greatly delighted," as he 
said, "with the beautiful effects of the conflagration," he 
sung a poem on the ruin of Troy, in the tragic dress he 

1 This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the beginning 
of August, a. u. c. 816, a. d 64. It was imputed to the Christians, 
and drew on them the persecutions mentioned in c. xvi., and the note. 
2; 



386 SUETONIUS. 

used on the stage. To turn this calamity to his own ad- 
vantage by plunder and rapine, he promised to remove 
the bodies of those who had perished in the fire, and clear 
the rubbish at his own expense ; suffering no one to med- 
dle with the remains of their property. But he not only 
received, but exacted contributions on account of the loss, 
until he had exhausted the means both of the provinces 
and private persons. 

XXXIX. To these terrible and shameful calamities - 
brought upon the people by their prince, were added 
some proceeding from misfortune. Such were a pesti- 
lence, by which, within the space of one autumn, there 
died no less than thirty thousand persons, as appeared 
from the registers in the temple of Libitina ; a great dis- 
aster in Britain, 1 where two of the principal towns be- 
longing to the Romans were plundered ; and a dreadful 
havoc made both amongst our troops and allies ; a shame- 
ful discomfiture of the army of the East ; where, in Ar- 
menia, the legions were obliged to pass under the yoke, 
and it was with great difficulty that Syria was retained. 
Amidst all these disasters, it was strange, and, indeed, 
particularly remarkable, that he bore nothing more pa- 
tiently than the scurrilous language and railing abuse 
which was in every one's mouth ; treating no class of per- 
sons with more gentleness, than those who assailed him 
with invective and lampoons. Many things of that kind 

1 The revolt in Britain broke out a. u. c. 813. Xiphilinus (lxii. p. 
701) attributes it to the severity of the confiscations with which the 
repayment of large sums of money advanced to the Britons by the 
emperor Claudius, and also by Seneca, was exacted. Tacitus adds an- 
other cause, the insupportable tyranny and avarice of the centurions 
and soldiers. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had named the emperor his 
heir. His widow Boadicea and her daughters were shamefully used, 
his kinsmen reduced to slavery, and his whole territory ravaged ; upon 
which the Britons flew to arms. See c. xviii., and the note. 



14-0 



NERO. 387 

were posted up about the city, or otherwise published, 
both in Greek and Latin : such as these, 

Nipcov Opi<7TT]<;, 'AXxfiaituv, fjLrjrpoxTovoc. 
Nsovuficpov, 1 Nipwv, Idtav txrJTep' a-ixrsivsv. 
Orestes and Alcmaeon — Nero too, 
The lustful Nero, worst of all the crew, 
Fresh from his bridal — their own mothers slew. 
Quis neget ^Eneae magna de stirpe Neronem ? 
Sustulit hie matrem : sustulit 2 ille patrem. 

Sprung from ^Eneas, pious, wise and great, 

Who says that Nero is degenerate ? 

Safe through the flames, one bore his sire ; the other, 

To save himself, took off his loving mother. 

Dum tendit citharam noster, dum cornua Parthus, 

Noster erit Paean, ille ixarrjISiXsrrj^. 
His lyre to harmony our Nero strings ; 
His arrows o'er the plain the Parthian wings : 
Ours call the tuneful Paean, — famed in war, 
The other Phoebus name, the god who shoots afar. 8 
Roma domus fiet : Vejos migrate, Quirites, 

Si non et Vejos occupat ista domus. 
All Rome will be one house : to Veii fly, 
Should it not stretch to Veii, by and by.* 

But he neither made any inquiry after the authors, nor 
when information was laid before the senate against some 

1 Nz6vufi<pov ; alluding to Nero's unnatural nuptials with Sporus or 
Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be vso'vo/z^o?. 

2 "Sustulit" has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away, 
and to put out of the way. 

3 The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean ; as 
the god of war, ''Exarr/fioXiTTjt;. 

4 Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up 
all Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from 
Rome, was originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs 
us (lib. ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate sur- 
vey of the ruins of Veii, in Gell's admirable Topography of Rome 
and its Vicinity, p. 436, of Bo/m's Edition. 



388 SUETONIUS. 

of them, would he allow a severe sentence to be passed. 
Isidorus, the Cynic philosopher, said to him aloud, as he 
was passing along the streets, " You sing the misfortunes 
of Nauplius well, but behave badly yourself." And Datus, 
a comic actor, when repeating these words in the piece. 
" Farewell, father ! Farewell mother !" mimicked the ges- 
tures of persons drinking and swimming, significantly 
alluding to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina : and 
on uttering the last clause, , 

Orcus vobus ducit pedes ; 
You stand this moment on the brink of Orcus ; 

he plainly intimated his application of it to the precarious 
position of the senate. Yet Nero only banished the 
player and philosopher from the city and Italy ; either be- 
cause he was insensible to shame, or from apprehension 
that if he discovered his vexation, still keener things 
might be said of him. 

XL. The world, after tolerating such an emperor for 
little less than fourteen years, at length forsook him ; 
the Gauls, headed by Julius Vindex, who at that time 
governed the province as pro-praetor, being the first to 
revolt. Nero had been formerly told by astrologers, that 
it would be his fortune to be at last deserted by all the 
world ; and this occasioned that celebrated saying of his, 
" An artist can live in any country ;" by which he meant 
to offer as an excuse for his practice of music, that it was 
not only his amusement as a prince, but might be his 
support when reduced to a private station. Yet some of 
the astrologers, promised him, in his forlorn state, the rule 
of the East, and in express words the kingdom of Jerusa- 
lem. But the greater part of them flattered him with 
assurances of his being restored to his former fortune. 
And being most inclined to believe the latter prediction, 
upon losing Britain and Armenia, he imagined he had run 



NERO. 389 

through all his misfortunes which the fates had decreed 
him. But when, upon consulting the oracle of Apollo at 
Delphi, he was advised to beware of the seventy-third 
year, as if he were not to die till then, never thinking of 
Galba's age, he conceived such hopes, not only of living 
to advanced years, but of constant and singular good for- 
tune, that having lost some things of great value by ship- 
wreck, he scrupled not to say amongst his friends, that 
" the fishes would bring them back to him." At Naples 
he heard of the insurrection in Gaul, on the anniversary 
of the day on which he killed his mother, and bore it with 
so much unconcern, as to excite a suspicion that he was 
really glad of it, since he had now a fair opportunity of 
plundering those wealthy provinces by the right of wan 
Immediately going to the gymnasium, he witnessed the 
exercise of the wrestlers, with the greatest delight. Being 
interrupted at supper with letters which brought yet 
worse news, he expressed no greater resentment, than 
only to threaten the rebels. For eight days together, he 
never attempted to answer any letters, nor give any orders, 
but buried the whole affair in profound silence. 

XLI. Being roused at last by numerous proclamations 
of Vindex, treating him with reproaches and contempt, he 
in a letter to the senate exhorted them to avenge his wrongs 
and those of the republic ; desiring them to excuse his 
not appearing in the senate house, because he had got 
cold. But nothing so much galled him, as to find himself 
railed at as a pitiful harper, and, instead of Nero, styled 
yEnobarbus : which being his family name, since he was 
upbraided with it, he declared he would resume it, and lay 
aside the name he had taken by adoption. Passing by 
the other accusations as wholly groundless, he earnestly 
refuted that of his want of skill in an art upon which he 
had bestowed so much pains, and in which he had arrived 



390 SUETONIUS. 

at such perfection ; asking frequently those about him, " if 
they knew any one who was a more accomplished musi- 
cian ?" But being alarmed by messengers after messen- 
gers of ill news from Gaul, he returned in great consterna- 
tion to Rome. On the road, his mind was somewhat re- 
lieved, by observing the frivolous omen of a Gaulish 
soldier defeated and dragged by the hair by a Roman 
knight, which was sculptured on a monument ; so that he 
leaped for joy, and adored the heavens. Even then he 
made no appeal either to the senate or people, but calling 
together some of the leading men at his own house, he 
held a hasty consultation upon the present state of affairs, 
and then, during the remainder of the day, carried them 
about with him to view some musical instruments, of a 
new invention, which were played by water j 1 exhibiting 
all the parts, and discoursing upon the principles and diffi- 
culties of the contrivance ; which, he told them, he in- 
tended to produce in the theatre, if Vindex would give 
him leave. 

XLII. Soon afterwards, he received intelligence that 
Galba and the Spaniards had declared against him ; upon 
which, he fainted, and losing his reason, lay a long time 
speechless, and apparently dead. As soon as he recover- 

1 Suetonius calls them organa hydraulica^nd. they seem to have been 
a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only 
that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the 
instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well 
described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ ap- 
pears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contor- 
niate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, 
upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse 
is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription m. 
aurelius antoninus pius aug. brit. (his latest title). On the reverse 
is the organ ; an oblong chest with the pipes above, and a draped figure 
on each side. 



NERO. 



39i 



ed from this state of stupefaction, he tore his clothes, and 
beat his head, crying, " It is all over with me !" His nurse 
endeavoring to comfort him, and telling him that the like 
things had happened to other princes before him, he re- 
plied, " I am beyond all example wretched, for I have lost 
an empire whilst I am still living." He, nevertheless, 
abated nothing of his usual luxury and inattention to busi- 
ness. Nay, on the arrival of good news from the pro- 
vinces, he, at a sumptuous entertainment, sung with an 
air of merriment some jovial verses upon the leaders of 
the revolt, which were made public ; and accompanied 
them with suitable gestures. Being carried privately to 
the theatre, he sent word to an actor who was applauded 
by the spectators, " that he had it all his own way, now 
that he himself did not appear on the stage." 

XLIII. At the first breaking out of these troubles, it is 
believed that he had formed many designs of a monstrous 
nature, although conformable enough to his natural dispo- 
sition. These were to send new governors and comman- 
ders to the provinces and the armies, and employ assassins 
to butcher all the former governors and commanders, as 
men unanimously engaged in a conspiracy against him; to 
massacre the exiles in every quarter, and all the Gaulish 
population in Rome ; the former lest they should join the 
insurrection ; the latter as privy to the designs of their 
countrymen, and ready to support them ; to abandon Gaul 
itself, to be wasted and plundered by his armies ; to poi- 
son the whole senate at a feast ; to fire the city, and then 
let loose the wild beasts upon the people, in order to im- 
pede their stopping the progress of the flames. But being 
deterred from the execution of these designs, not so 
much by remorse of conscience, as by despair of being 
able to effect them ; and judging an expedition into Gaul 
necessary, he removed the consuls from their office, before 



392 SUETONIUS. 

the time of its expiration was arrived ; and in their room 
assumed the consulship himself without a colleague, as if 
the fates had decreed that Gaul should not be conquered, 
but by a consul. Upon assuming the fasces, after an enter- 
tainment at the palace, as he walked out of the room lean- 
ing on the arms of some of his friends, he declared, that as 
soon as he arrived in the province, he would make his 
appearance amongst the troops, unarmed, and do nothing 
but weep : and that, after he had brought the mutineers 
to repentance, he would, the next day, in the public re- 
joicings, sing songs of triumph, which he must now, with- 
out loss of time, apply himself to compose. 

XLIV. In preparing for this expedition, his first care 
was to provide carriages for his musical instruments and 
machinery to be used upon the stage ; to have the hair of 
the concubines he carried with him dressed in the fashion 
of men ; and to supply them with battle-axes, and Ama- 
zonian bucklers. He summoned the city-tribes to enlist ; 
but no qualified persons appearing, he ordered all mas- 
ters to send a certain number of slaves, the best they had, 
not excepting their stewards and secretaries. He com- 
manded the several orders of the people to bring in a 
fixed proportion of their estates, as they stood in the cen- 
sor's books ; all tenants of houses and mansions to pay 
one year's rent forthwith into the exchequer ; and with 
unheard-of strictness, would receive only new coin of the 
purest silver and the finest gold ; insomuch that most 
people refused to pay, crying out unanimously that he 
ought to squeeze the informers, and oblige them to sur- 
render their gains. 

XLV. The general odium in which he was held re- 
ceived an increase by the great scarcity of corn, and an 
occurrence connected with it. For, as it happened just at 
that time, there arrived from Alexandria a ship, which was 



NERO. 



393 



said to be freighted with dust for the wrestlers belonging 
to the emperor. 1 This so much inflamed the public rage, 
that he was treated with the utmost abuse and scurrility. 
Upon the top of one of his statues was placed the figure 
of a chariot with a Greek inscription, that " Now indeed 
he had a race to run ; let him begone." A little bag was 
tied about another, with a ticket containing these words : 
" What could I do ? " — " Truly thou hast merited the 
sack." 2 Some person likewise wrote on the pillars in the 
forum, " that he had even woke the cocks 3 with his sing- 
ing." And many, in the night-time, pretending to find 
fault with their servants, frequently called for a Vindex^ 
XLVI. He was also terrified with manifest warnings, 
both old and new, arising from dreams, auspices, and 
omens. He had never been used to dream before the 
murder of his mother. After that event, he fancied in 
his sleep that he was steering a ship, and that the rudder 
was forced from him : that he was dragged by his wife 
Octavia into a prodigiously dark place ; and was at one 
time covered over with a vast swarm of winged ants, and 
at another, surrounded by the national images which were 

1 A fine sand from the Nile, similar to puzzuolano, which was strewed 
on the stadium ; the wrestlers also rolled in it, when their bodies were 
slippery with oil or perspiration. 

2 The words on the ticket about the emperor's neck, are supposed, by 
a prosopopea, to be spoken by him. The reply is Agrippina's or the 
people's. It alludes to the punishment due to him for his parricide. 
By the Roman law, a person who had murdered a parent or any near 
relation, after being severely scourged, was sewed up in a sack, with a 
dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then thrown into the sea, or a 
deep river. 

3 Gallos, which signifies both cocks and Gauls. 

4 Vindex, it need hardly be observed, was the name of the propraetor 
who had set up the standard of rebellion in Gaul. The word also sig- 
nifies an avenger of wrongs, redresser of grievances ; hence vindicate, 
vindictive, &c. 



394 SUETONIUS. **) 

set up near Pompey's theatre, and hindered from advan- 
cing farther ; that a Spanish jennet he was fond of, had 
his hinder parts so changed, as to resemble those of an 
ape; and having his head only left unaltered, neighed 
very harmoniously. The doors of the mausoleum of Au- 
gustus flying open of themselves, there issued from it a 
voice, calling on him by name. The Lares being adorned 
with fresh garlands on the calends (the first) of January, 
fell down during the preparations for sacrificing to them. 
While he was taking the omens, Sporus presented him 
with a ring, the stone of which had carved upon it the 
Rape of Proserpine. When a great multitude of the 
several orders was assembled, to attend at the solemnity 
of making vows to the gods, it was a long time before 
the keys of the Capitol could be found. And when, in a 
speech of his to the senate against Vindex, these words 
were read, " that the miscreants should be punished and 
soon make the end they merited," they all cried out, 
" You will do it, Augustus." It was likewise remarked, 
that the last tragic piece which he sung, was CEdipus in 
Exile, and that he fell as he was repeating this verse : 

Wife, mother, father, force me to my end. 

XLVII. Meanwhile, on the arrival of the news, that 
the rest of the armies had declared against him, he tore 
to pieces the letters which were delivered to, him at din- 
ner, overthrew the table, and dashed with violence against 
the ground two favourite cups, which he called Homer's, 
because some of that poet's verses were cut upon them. 
Then taking from Locusta a dose of poison, which he put 
up in a golden box, he went into the Servilian gardens, 
and thence dispatching a trusty freedman to Ostia, with 
orders to make ready a fleet, he endeavoured to prevail 
with some tribunes and centurions of the pretorian guards 



NERO. 395 

to attend him in his flight ; but part of them showing no 
great inclination to comply, others absolutely refusing, 
and one of them crying out aloud, 

Usque adeone mori miserum est ? 
Say, is it then so sad a thing to die P 1 

he was in great perplexity whether he should submit him- 
self to Galba, or apply to the Parthians for protection, or 
else appear before the people dressed in mourning, and, 
upon the rostra, in the most piteous manner, beg pardon 
for his past misdemeanors, and, if he could not prevail, 
request of them to grant him at least the government of 
Egypt. A speech to this purpose was afterwards found 
in his writing-case. But it is conjectured that he durst 
not venture upon this project, for fear of being torn to 
pieces, before he could get to the forum. Deferring, 
therefore, his resolution until the next day, he awoke 
about midnight, and finding the guards withdrawn, he 
leaped out of bed, and sent round for his friends. But 
none of them vouchsafing any message in reply, he went 
with a few attendants to their houses. The doors being 
every where shut, and no one giving him any answer, he 
returned to his bed-chamber ; whence those who had the 
charge of it had all now eloped ; some having gone one 
way, and some another, carrying off with them his bed- 
ding and box of poison. He then endeavoured to find 
Spicillus, the gladiator, or some one to kill him ; but not 
being able to procure any one, "What!" said he, "have I 
then neither friend nor foe ?" and immediately ran out, as 
if he would throw himself into the Tiber. 

XLVIII. But this furious impulse subsiding, he wished 
for some place of privacy, where he might collect his 
thoughts ; and his freedman Phaon offering him his coun- 

1 ^)n. xii. 646. 



396 SUETONIUS. 

try-house, between the Salarian 1 and Nomentan 2 roads,' 
about four miles from the city, he mounted a horse, bare- 
foot as he was, and, in his tunic, only slipping over it 
an old soiled cloak ; with his head muffled up, and an 
handkerchief before his face, and four persons only to 
attend him, of whom Sporus was one. He was suddenly 
struck with horror at an earthquake, and by a flash of 
lightning which darted full in his face, and heard from the 
neighbouring camp 3 the shouts of the soldiers, wishing 
his destruction, and prosperity to Galba. He also heard 
a traveller they met on the road say, " They are in pur- 
suit of Nero :" and another ask, " Is there any news in 
the city about Nero?" Uncovering his face when his 
horse was started by the scent of a carcase which lay in 
the road, he was recognized and saluted by an old soldier 
who had been discharged from the guards. When they 
came to the lane which turned up to the house, they quit- 
ted their horses, and with much difficulty he wound among 
bushes and briars, and along a track through a bed of 

1 The Via Salaria was so called from the Sabines using it to fetch salt 
from the coast. It led from Rome to the northward, near the gardens 
of Sallust, by a gate of the same name, called also Quirinalis, Agonalis, 
and Collina. It was here that Alaric entered. 

2 The Via Nomentana, so named because it led to the Sabine town of 
Nomentum, joined the Via Salara at Heretum on the Tiber. It was also 
called Ficulnensis. It entered Rome by the Porta Viminalis, now called 
Porta Pia. It was by this road that Hannibal approached the walls of 
Rome. The country-house of Nero's freedman, where he ended his 
days, stood near the Anio, beyond the present church of St. Agnese, 
where there was a villa of the Spada family, belonging now, we believe, 
to Torlonia. 

3 This description is no less exact than vivid. It was easy for Nero 
to gain the nearest gate, the Nomentan, from the Esquiline quarter of 
the palace, without much observation ; and on issuing from it (after 
midnight, it appears), the fugitives would have the pretorian camp so 
close on their right hand, that they might well hear the shouts of the 
soldiers. 



NERO. 



397 



rushes, over which they spread their cloaks for him to 
walk on. Having reached a wall at the back of the villa, 
Phaon advised him to hide himself awhile in a sand-pit ; 
when he replied, " I will not go under-ground alive." 
Staying there some little time, while preparations were 
made for bringing him privately into the villa, he took 
some water out of a neighbouring tank in his hand, to 
drink, saying, " This is Nero's distilled water." 1 Then his 
cloak having been torn by the brambles, he pulled out 
the thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted, 
creeping upon his hands and knees, through a hole made 
for him in the wall, he lay down in the first closet he came 
to, upon a miserable pallet, with an old coverlet thrown 
over it ; and being both hungry and thirsty, though he 
refused some coarse bread that was brought him, he 
drank a little warm water. 

XLIX. All who surrounded him now pressing him to 
save himself from the indignities which were ready to 
befall him, he ordered a pit to be sunk before his eyes, of 
the size of his body, and the bottom to be covered with 
pieces of marble put together, if any could be found about 
the house ; and water and wood, 2 to be got ready for im- 
mediate use about his corpse ; weeping at every thing that 
was done, and frequently saying, " What an artist is now 
about to perish!" Meanwhile, letters being brought in 
by a servant belonging to Phaon, he snatched them out 
of his hand, and there read, "That he had been declared 
an enemy by the senate, and that search was making for 
him, that he might be punished according to the ancient 
custom of the Romans." He then inquired what kind of 

1 Decocta. Pliny informs us that Nero had the water he drank, boiled, 
to clear it from impurities, and then cooled with ice. 

2 Wood, to warm the water for washing the corpse, and for the funeral 
pile. 



398 SUETONIUS. 

punishment that was ; and being told, that the practice 
was to strip the criminal naked, and scourge him to death, 
while his neck was fastened within a forked stake, he was 
so terrified that he took up two daggers which he had 
brought with him, and after feeling the points of both, put 
them up again, saying, " The fatal hour is not yet come." 
One while, he begged of Sporus to begin to wail and 
lament; another while, he entreated that one of them 
would set him an example by killing himself; and then 
again, he condemned his own want of resolution in these 
words : " I yet live to my shame and disgrace : this is not 
becoming for Nero : it is not becoming. Thou oughtest 
in such circumstances to have a good heart : Come, then : 
courage, man!" 1 The horsemen who had received orders 
to bring him away alive, were now approaching the house. 
As soon as he heard them coming, he uttered with a 
trembling voice the following verse, 

"Ixxiov i± a>xu-6dwv d/i<pt xrortoq obara pallet. 2 
The noise of swift-heel' d steeds assails my ears; 

he drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the 
act by Epaphroditus, his secretary. A centurion bursting 
in just as he was half-dead, and applying his cloak to the 
wound, pretending that he was come to his assistance, 
he made no other reply but this, " 'Tis too late ; and " Is 
this your loyalty ?" Immediately after pronouncing these 
words, he expired, with his eyes fixed and starting out of 
his head, to the terror of all who beheld him. He had 
requested of his attendants, as the most essential favour, 
that they would let no one have his head, but that by all 
means his body might be burnt entire. And this, Icelus, 

1 This burst of passion was uttered in Greek, the rest was spoken in 
Latin. Both were in familiar use. The mixture, perhaps, betrays the 
disturbed state of Nero's mind. 

2 II. x. 535. 



NERO. 399 

Galba's freedman, granted. He had but a little before 
been discharged from the prison into which he had been 
thrown, when the disturbances first broke out. 

L. The expenses of his funeral amounted to two hun- 
dred thousand sesterces ; the bed upon which his body 
was carried to the pile and burnt, being covered with the 
white robes, interwoven with gold, which he had worn 
upon the calends of January preceding. His nurses, 
Ecloge and Alexandra, with his concubine Acte, deposited 
his remains in the tomb belonging to the family of the 
Domitii, which stands upon the top of the Hill of the 
Gardens, 1 and is to be seen from the Campus Martius. 
In that monument, a coffin of porphyry, with an altar of 
marble of Luna over it, is enclosed by a wall built of 
stone brought from Thasos. 2 

LI. In stature he was a little below the common height; 
his skin was foul and spotted ; his hair inclined to yellow ; 
his features were agreeable rather than handsome ; his 
eyes grey and dull, his neck was thick, his belly promi- 

1 Collis Hortulorum ; which was afterwards called the Pincian Hill, 
from a family of that name, who flourished under the lower empire. In 
the time of the Caesars it was occupied by the gardens and villas of the 
wealthy and luxurious ; amongst which those of Sallust are celebrated. 
Some of the finest statues have been found in rjie ruins ; among others, 
that of the " Dying Gladiator." The situation was airy and healthful, 
commanding fine views, and it is still the most agreeable neighbourhood 
in Rome. 

2 Antiquarians suppose that some relics of the sepulchre of the Do- 
mitian family, in which the ashes of Nero were deposited, are preserved 
in the city wall which Aurelian, when he extended its circuit, carried 
across the " Collis Hortulorum." Those ancient remains, declining 
from the perpendicular, are called the Muro Torto. — The Lunan marble 
was brought from quarries near a town of that name, in Etruria. It no 
longer exists, but stood on the coast of what is now called the gulf of 
Spezzia. — Thasos, an island in the Archipelago, was one of the Cyclades. 
It produced a grey marble much veined, but not in great repute. 



4 oo SUETONIUS. 

nent, his legs very slender, his constitution sound. For, 
though excessively luxurious in his mode of living, he 
had, in the course of fourteen years, only three fits of 
sickness ; which were so slight, that he neither forbore 
the use of wine, nor made any alteration in his usual diet. 
In his dress, and the care of his person he was so care- 
less, that he had his hair cut in rings, one above another ; 
and when in Achaia, he let it grow long behind ; and he 
generally appeared in public in the loose dress which he 
used at table, with a handkerchief about his neck, and 
without either a girdle or shoes. 

LII. He was instructed, when a boy, in the rudiments 
of almost all the liberal sciences ; but his mother diverted 
him from the study of philosophy, as unsuited to one des- 
tined to be an emperor ; and his preceptor, Seneca, dis- 
couraged him from reading the ancient orators, that he 
might longer secure his devotion to himself. Therefore, 
having a turn for poetry, he composed verses both with 
pleasure and ease ; nor did he, as some think, publish 
those of other writers as his own. Several little pocket- 
books and loose sheets have come into my possession, 
which contain some well-known verses in his own hand, 
and written in such a manner, that it was very evident, 
from the blotting and interlining, that they had not been 
transcribed from a copy, nor dictated by another, but 
were written by the composer of them. 

LIU. He had likewise great taste for drawing and 
painting, as well as for moulding statues in plaster. But, 
above all things, he most eagerly coveted popularity, 
being the rival of every man who obtained the applause 
of the people for anything he did. It was the general 
belief, that, after the crowns he won by his performances 
on the stage, he would the next lustrum have taken his 
place among the wrestlers at the Olympic games. For 



NERO. 



401 



he was continually practising that art ; nor did he witness 
the gymnastic games in any part of Greece otherwise 
than sitting upon the ground in the stadium, as the um- 
pires do. And if a pair of wrestlers happened to break 
the bounds, he would with his own hands drag them back 
into the centre of the circle. Because he was thought to 
equal Apollo in music, and the sun in chariot-driving, he 
resolved also to imitate the achievements of Hercules. 
And they say that a lion was got ready for him to kill, 
either with a club, or with a close hug, in view of the 
people in the amphitheatre; which he was to perform 
naked. 

LIV. Towards the end of his life, he publicly vowed, 
that if his power in the state was securely re-established, 
he would, in the spectacles which he intended to exhibit 
in honour of his success, include a performance upon or- 
gans, 1 as well as upon flutes and bagpipes, and, on the 
last day of the games, would act in the play, and take the 
part of Turnus, as we find it in Virgil. And there are 
some who say, that he put to death the player Paris as a 
dangerous rival. 

LV. He had an insatiable desire to immortalize his 
name, and acquire a reputation which should last through 
all succeeding ages; but it was capriciously directed. He 
therefore took from several things and places their for- 
mer appellations, and gave them new names derived 
from his own. He called the month of April, Neroneus, 
and designed changing the name of Rome into that of 
Neropolis. 

LVI. He held all religious rites in contempt, except 
those of the Syrian Goddess ; 2 but at last he paid her so 

1 See c. xli. 

7 The Syrian Goddess is supposed to have been Semiramis deified. 
Her rites are mentioned by Florus, Apuleius, and Lucian. 
26 



4 o2 SUETONIUS. 

little reverence, that he made water upon her; being now 
engaged in another superstition, in which only he obsti- 
nately persisted. For having received from some obscure 
plebeian a little image of a girl, as a preservative against 
plots, and discovering a conspiracy immediately after, he 
constantly worshipped his imaginary protectress as the 
greatest amongst the gods, offering to her three sacrifices 
daily. He was also desirous to have it supposed that he 
had, by revelations from this deity, a knowledge of future 
events. A few months before he died, he attended a sac- 
rifice, according to the Etruscan rites, but the omens were 
not favourable. 

LVII. He died in the thirty-second year of his age, 1 
upon the same day on which he had formerly put Octavia 
to death ; and the public joy was so great upon the occa- 
sion, that the common people ran about the city with caps 
upon their heads. Some, however, were not wanting, 
who for a long time decked his tomb with spring and 
summer flowers. Sometimes they placed his image upon 
the rostra, dressed in robes of state ; at another, they 
published proclamations in his name, as if he were still 
alive, and would shortly return to Rome, and take ven- 
geance on all his enemies. Vologesus, king of the Par- 
thians, when he sent ambassadors to the senate to renew 
his alliance with the Roman people, earnestly requested 
that due honour should be paid to the memory of Nero ; 
and, to conclude, when, twenty years afterwards, at which 
time I was a young man, 2 some person of obscure birth 
gave himself out for Nero, that name secured for him so 
favourable a reception from the Parthians, that he was 

1 A. U. C. 821 — A. D. 69. 

2 We have here one of the incidental notices which are so valuable in 
an historian, as connecting him with the times of which he writes. See 
also just before, c. Hi. 



NERO. 403 

very zealously supported, and it was with much difficulty 
that they were prevailed upon to give him up. 



Though no law had ever passed for regulating the transmission of 
the imperial power, yet the design of conveying it by lineal descent 
was implied in the practice of adoption. By the rule of hereditary 
succession, Britannicus, the son of Claudius, was the natural heir to the 
throne ; but he was supplanted by the artifices of his stepmother, who 
had the address to procure it for her own son, Nero. From the time 
of Augustus it had been the custom of each of the new sovereigns to 
commence his reign in such a manner as tended to acquire popularity, 
however much they all afterwards degenerated from those specious be- 
ginnings. Whether this proceeded entirely from policy, or that nature 
was not yet vitiated by the intoxication of uncontrolled power, is un- 
certain ; but such were the excesses into which they afterwards plunged, 
that we can scarcely exempt any of them, except, perhaps, Claudius, 
from the imputation of great original depravity. The vicious temper 
of Tiberius was known to his own mother, Livia ; that of Caligula had 
been obvious to those about him from his infancy ; Claudius seems to 
have had naturally a stronger tendency to weakness than to vice ; but 
the inherent wickedness of Nero was discovered at an early period by 
his preceptor, Seneca. Yet even this emperor commenced his reign in 
a manner which procured him approbation. Of all the Roman em- 
perors who had hitherto reigned, he seems to have been most corrupted 
by profligate favourites, who flattered his follies and vices, to promote 
their own aggrandisement. In the number of these was Tigellinus, 
who met at last with the fate which he had so amply merited. 

The several reigns from the death of Augustus present us with un- 
common scenes of cruelty and horror ; but it was reserved for that of 
Nero to exhibit to the world the atrocious act of an emperor deliberate- 
ly procuring the death of his mother. 

Julia Agrippina was the daughter of Germanicus, and married 
Domitius ^Enobarbus, by whom she had Nero. At the death of Mes- 
salina she was a widow ; and Claudius, her uncle, entertaining a design 
of entering again into the married state, she aspired to an incestuous 
alliance with him, in competition with Lollia Paulina, a woman of 
beauty and intrigue, who had been married to C. Caesar. The two 
rivals were strongly supported by their respective parties ; but Agrip- 



4 04 SUETONIUS. 

pina, by her superior interest with the emperor's favourites, and the 
familiarity to which her near relations gave her a claim, obtained the 
preference ; and the portentous nuptials of the emperor and his niece 
were publicly solemnized in the palace. Whether she was prompted to 
this flagrant indecency by personal ambition alone, or by the desire of 
procuring the succession to the empire for her son, is uncertain ; but 
there remains no doubt of her having removed Claudius by poison, with 
a view to the object now mentioned. Besides Claudius, she projected 
the death of L. Silanus, and she accomplished that of his brother Junius 
Silanus, by means likewise of poison. She appears to have been richly 
endowed with the gifts of nature, but in her disposition intriguing, 
violent, imperious, and ready to sacrifice every principle of virtue, in 
the pursuit of supreme power or sensual gratification. As she resembled 
Livia in the ambition of a mother, and the means by which she indulg- 
ed it, so she more than equalled her in the ingratitude of an unnatural 
son and a parricide. She is said to have left behind her some memoirs, 
of which Tacitus availed himself in the composition of his Annals. 

In this reign, the conquest of the Britons still continued to be the 
principal object of military enterprise, and Suetonius Paulinus was in- 
vested with the command of the Roman army employed in the reduc- 
tion of that people. The island of Mona, now Anglesey, being the 
chief seat of the Druids, he resolved to commence his operations with 
attacking a place which was the centre of superstition, and to which 
the vanquished Britons retreated as the last asylum of liberty. The 
inhabitants, endeavoured, both by force of arms and the terrors of reli- 
gion, to obstruct his landing on this sacred island. The women and 
Druids assembled promiscuously with the soldiers upon the shore, where 
running about in wild disorder, with flaming torches in their hands, 
and pouring forth the most hideous exclamations, they struck the 
Romans with consternation. But Suetonius animating his troops, they 
boldly attacked the inhabitants, routed them in the field, and burned 
the Druids in the same fires which had been prepared by those priests 
for the catastrophe of the invaders, destroying at the same time all the 
consecrated groves and altars in the island. Suetonius having thus 
triumphed over the religion of the Britons, flattered himself with the 
hopes of soon effecting the reduction of the people. But they, encour- 
aged by his absence, had taken arms, and under the conduct of Boadi- 
cea, queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious 
manner by the Roman tribunes, had already driven the haughty inva- 
ders from their several settlements, Suetonius hastened to the protec- 
tion of London, which was by this time a flourishing Roman colony ; 



NERO. 405 

but he found upon his arrival, that any attempt to preserve it would be 
attended with the utmost danger to the army. London therefore was 
reduced to ashes ; and the Romans, and all strangers, to the number of 
seventy thousand, were put to the sword without distinction, the Britons 
seeming determined to convince the enemy that they would acquiesce 
in no other terms than a total evacuation of the island. This massacre, 
however, was revenged by Suetonius in a decisive engagement, where 
eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have been killed ; after which, 
Boadicea, to avoid falling into the hands of the insolent conquerors, 
put a period to her own life by means of poison. It being judged 
unadvisable that Suetonius should any longer conduct the war against a 
people whom he had exasperated by his severity, he was recalled, and 
Petronius Turpilianus appointed in his room. The command was 
afterwards given successively to Trebellius Maximus and Vettius Bola- 
nus ; but the plan pursued by these generals was only to retain,- by a 
conciliatory administration, the parts of the island which had already 
submitted to the Roman arms. 

During these transactions in Britain, Nero himself was exhibiting, in 
Rome or some of the provinces, such scenes of extravagance as almost 
exceed credibility. In one place, entering the lists amongst the com- 
petitors in a chariot race ; in another contending for victory with the 
common musicians on the stage ; revelling in open day in the company 
of the most abandoned prostitutes and the vilest of men ; in the night, 
committing depredations on the peaceful inhabitants of the capital ; 
polluting with detestable lust, or drenching with human blood, the 
streets, the palaces, and the habitations of private families; and, to 
crown his enormities, setting fire to Rome, while he sung with delight 
in beholding the dreadful conflagration. In vain would history be 
ransacked for a parallel to this emperor, who united the most shameful 
vices to the most extravagant vanity, the most abject meanness to the 
strongest but most preposterous ambition ; and the whole of whose life 
was one continued scene of lewdness, sensuality, rapine, cruelty, and 
folly. It is emphatically observed by Tacitus, " that Nero, after the 
murder of many illustrious personages, manifested a desire of extirpat- 
ing virtue itself." 

Among other excesses of Nero's reign, are to be mentioned the hor- 
rible cruelties exercised against the Christians in various parts of the 
empire, in which inhuman transactions the natural barbarity of the 
emperor was inflamed by the prejudices and interested policy of the 
pagan priesthood. 

The tyrant scrupled not to charge them with the act of burning 



4 o6 SUETONIUS. 

Rome ; and he satiated his fury against them by such outrages as are 
unexampled in history. They were covered with the skins of wild beasts, 
and torn by dogs ; were crucified, and set on fire, that they might serve 
for lights in the n t ght-time. Nero offered his garden for this spectacle, 
and exhibited the games of the Circus by this dreadful illumination. 
Sometimes they were covered with wax and other combustible materials, 
after which a sharp stake was put under their chin, to make them stand 
upright, and they were burnt alive, to give light to the spectators. 

In the person of Nero, it is observed by Suetonius, the race of the 
Caesars became extinct; a race rendered illustrious by the first and 
second emperors, but which their successors no less disgraced. The 
despotism of Julius Caesar, though haughty and imperious, was liberal 
and humane : that of Augustus, if we exclude a few instances of vindic- 
tive severity towards individuals, was mild and conciliating ; but the 
reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero (for we except Claudius from 
part of the censure), while discriminated from each other by some 
peculiar circumstances, exhibited the most flagrant acts of licentious- 
ness and perverted authority. The most abominable lust, the most 
extravagant luxury, the most shameful rapaciousness, and the most 
inhuman cruelty, constitute the general characteristics of those capri- 
cious and detestable tyrants. Repeated experience now clearly refuted 
the opinion of Augustus, that he had introduced amongst the Romans 
the best form of government : but while we make this observation, it 
is proper to remark, that, had he even restored the republic, there is 
reason to believe that the nation would again have been soon distracted 
with internal divisions, and a perpetual succession of civil wars. The 
manners of the people were become too dissolute to be restrained by 
the authority of elective and temporary magistrates ; and the Romans 
were hastening to that fatal period when general, and great corruption, 
with its attendant debility, would render them an easy prey to any for- 
eign invaders. 

But the odious government of the emperors was not the only griev- 
ance under which the people laboured in those disastrous times : patri- 
cian avarice concurred with imperial rapacity to increase the sufferings 
of the nation. The senators, even during the commonwealth, had be- 
come openly corrupt in the dispensation of public justice ; and under 
the government of the emperors, this pernicious abuse was practised to 
a yet greater extent. That class being now, equally with other Roman 
citizens, dependent on the sovereign power, their sentiments of duty 
and honour were degraded by the loss of their former dignity ; and 
being likewise deprived of the lucrative governments of provinces, to 



NERO. 407 

which they had annually succeeded by an elective rotation in the times 
of the republic, they endeavoured to compensate the reduction of their 
emoluments by an unbounded venality in the judicial decisions of the 
forum. Every source of national happiness and prosperity was by this 
means destroyed. The possession of property became precarious ; in- 
dustry, in all its branches, was effectually discouraged, and the amor 
patria, which had formerly been the animating principle of the nation, 
was almost universally extinguished. 

It is a circumstance corresponding to the general singularity of the 
present reign, that, of the few writers who flourished in it, and whose 
works have been transmitted to posterity, two ended their days by the 
order of the emperor, and the third, from indignation at his conduct. 
These unfortunate victims were Seneca, Petronius Arbiter, and Lucan. 



SERGIUS SULPICIUS GALBA. 



I. The race of the Caesars became extinct in Nero ; an 
event prognosticated by various signs, two of which were 
particularly significant. Formerly, when Livia, after her 
marriage with Augustus, was making a visit to her villa 
at Veii, 1 an eagle flying by, let drop upon her lap a hen, 
with a sprig of laurel in her mouth, just as she had seized 
it. Livia gave orders to have the hen taken care of, and 
the sprig of laurel set ; and the hen reared such a numer- 
ous brood of chickens, that the villa, to this day, is called 
the Villa of the Hens. The laurel grove 2 flourished so 
much, that the Caesars procured thence the boughs and 
crowns they bore at their triumphs. It was also their 
constant custom to plant others on the same spot, imme- 
diately after a triumph ; and it was observed that, a little 
before the death of each prince, the tree which had been 
set by him died away. But in the last year of Nero, the 

1 Veii ; see the note, Nero, c. xxxix. i> 

8 The conventional term for what is most commonly known as, 

" The Laurel, meed of mighty conquerors, 
And poets sage. "■ — Spenser 1 s Faerie Queen. 

is retained throughout the translation. But the tree or shrub which had 
this distinction among the ancients, the Laurus nobilis of botany, the 
Daphne of the Greeks, is the bay tree, indigenous in Italy, Greece and 
the East, and introduced into England about 1562. Our laurel is a 
plant of a very different tribe, the Prunus lauro-cerasus, a native of the 
Levant and the Crimea, acclimated in England at a later period than 
the bay. 

408 




'-BA. 



E &C0 PHILADELPHIA 



GALBA. 409 

whole plantation of laurels perished to the very roots, and 
the hens all died. About the same time, the temple of 
the Caesars l being struck with lightning, the heads of all 
the statues in it fell off at once ; and Augustus's sceptre 
was dashed from his hands. 

II. Nero was succeeded by Galba, 2 who was not in the 
remotest degree allied to the family of the Caesars, but, 
without doubt, of very noble extraction, being descended 
from a great and ancient family ; for he always used to 
put amongst his other titles, upon the bases of his sta- 
tues, his being great-grandson to Q. Catulus Capitolinus. 
And when he came to be emperor, he set up the images 
of his ancestors in the hall 3 of the palace ; according to 
the inscriptions on which, he carried up his pedigree on 
the father s side to Jupiter ; and by the mother's to Pasi- 
phae, the wife of Minos. 

III. To give even a short account of the whole family, 
would be tedious. I shall, therefore, only slightly notice 
that branch of it from which he was descended. Why, or 
whence, the first of the Sulpicii who had the cognomen of 

1 The Temple of the Caesars is generally supposed to be that dedi- 
cated by Julius Caesar to Venus genitrix, from whom the Julian family 
pretended to derive their descent. See Julius, c. lxi. ; Augustus, 
xcviii. xcix. 

2 a. u. c. 821. 

3 The Atrium, or Aula, was the court or hall of a house, the entrance 
to which was by the principal door. It appears to have been a large 
oblong square, surrounded with covered or arched galleries. Three 
sides of the Atrium were supported by pillars, which, in later times, 
were marble. The side opposite to the gate was called Tablinwn ; and 
the other two sides, Alee. The Tablinum contained books, and the 
records of what each member of the family had done in his magistracy. 
In the Atrium the nuptial couch was erected ; and here the mistress of 
the family, with her maid-servants wrought at spinning and weaving, 
which, in the time of the ancient Romans, was their principal employ- 
ment. 



4 io SUETONIUS. 

Galba, was so called, is uncertain. Some are of opinion, 
that it was because he set fire to a city in Spain, after he 
had a long time attacked it to no purpose, with torches 
dipped in the gum called Galbanum : others said he was 
so named, because, in a lingering disease, he made use of 
it as a remedy, wrapped up in wool : others, on account 
of his being prodigiously corpulent, such a one being 
called, in the language of the Gauls, Galba ; or, on the 
contrary, because he was of a slender habit of body, like 
those insects which breed in a sort of oak, and are called 
Galbae. Sergius Galba, a person of consular rank, 1 and 
the most eloquent man of his time, gave a lustre to the 
family. History relates, that, when he was pro-praetor of 
Spain, he perfidiously put to the sword thirty thousand 
Lusitanians, and by that means gave occasion to the war 
of Viriatus. 2 His grandson being incensed against Julius 
Caesar, whose lieutenant he had been in Gaul, because he 
was through him disappointed of the consulship, 3 joined 
with Cassius and Brutus in the conspiracy against him, 
for which he was condemned by the Pedian law. From 
him were descended the grandfather and father of the 
emperor Galba. The grandfather was more celebrated 
for his application to study, than for any figure he made 
in the government. For he rose no higher than the prae- 
torship, but published a large and not uninteresting his- 
tory. His father attained to the consulship : 4 he was a 
short man and hump-backed, but a tolerable orator, and 
an industrious pleader. He was twice married : the first 
of his wives was Mummia Achaica, daughter of Catulus, 
and great-grand-daughter of Lucius Mummius, who 
sacked Corinth ; 5 and the other, Livia Ocellina, a very 
rich and beautiful woman, by whom it is supposed he was 

1 He was consul with L. Aurelius Cotta, a. u. c. 6io. 

2 A. U. C. 604. 3 A. U. C. 710. *A. U. C. 775. 5 A. U. C. 608. 



GALBA. 411 

courted for the nobleness of his descent. They say, that 
she was farther encouraged to persevere in her advances, 
by an incident which evinced the great ingenuousness of 
his disposition. Upon her pressing her suit, he took an 
opportunity, when they were alone, of stripping off his 
toga, and showing her the deformity of his person, that 
he might not be thought to impose upon her. He had 
by Achaica two sons, Caius and Sergius. The elder of 
these, Caius, 1 having very much reduced his estate, retired 
from town, and being prohibited by Tiberius from stand- 
ing for a pro-consulship in his year, put an end to his own 
life. 

IV. The emperor Sergius Galba was born in the con- 
sulship of M. Valerius Messala, and Cn. Lentulus, upon 
the ninth of the calends of January [24th December], 2 in 
a villa standing upon a hill, near Terracina, on the left- 
hand side of the road to Fundi. 3 Being adopted by his 
step-mother, 4 he assumed the name of Livius, with the 
cognomen of Ocella, and changed his praenomen ; for he 
afterwards used that of Lucius, instead of Sergius, until 
he arrived at the imperial dignity. It is well known, that 
when he came once, amongst other boys of his own age, 
to pay his respects to Augustus, the latter, pinching his 
cheek, said to him, "And thou, child, too, wilt taste our 
imperial dignity." Tiberius, likewise, being told that he 
would come to be emperor, but at an advanced age, ex- 
claimed, " Let him live, then, since that does not concern 
me ! " When his grandfather was offering sacrifice to 
avert some ill omen from lightning, the entrails of the 

1 Caius Sulpicius Galba, the emperor's brother, had been consul A. u. 
c. 774. 2 A. u. c. 751. 

3 Now Fondi, which, with Terracina, still bearing its original name, 
lie on the road to Naples. See Tiberius, cc. v. and xxxix. 

4 Livia Ocellina, mentioned just before. 



412 SUETONIUS. 

victim were snatched out of his hand by an eagle and 
carried off into an oak-tree loaded with acorns. Upon 
this, the soothsayers said, that the family would come to 
be masters of the empire, but not until many years had 
elapsed: at which he, smiling, said, "Ay, when a mule 
comes to bear a foal." When Galba first declared against 
Nero, nothing gave him so much confidence of success, 
as a mule's happening at that time to have a foal. And 
whilst all others were shocked at the occurrence, as a 
most inauspicious prodigy, he alone regarded it as a most 
fortunate omen, calling to mind the sacrifice and saying 
of his grandfather. When he took upon him the manly 
habit, he dreamt that the goddess Fortune said to him, " I 
stand before your door weary ; and unless I am speedily 
admitted, I shall fall into the hands of the first who comes 
to seize me." On his awaking, when the door of the 
house was opened, he found a brazen statue of the god- 
dess, above a cubit long, close to the threshold, which he 
carried with him to Tuseulum, where he used to pass the 
summer season ; and having consecrated it in an apart- 
ment of his house, he ever after worshipped it with a 
monthly sacrifice, and an anniversary vigil. Though but 
a very young man, he kept up an ancient but obsolete 
custom, and now nowhere observed, except in his own fam- 
ily, which was, to have his freedmen and slaves appear in 
a body before him twice a day, morning and evening, to 
offer him their salutations. 

V. Amongst other liberal studies, he applied himself to 
the law. He married Lepida, 1 by whom he had two sons; 
but the mother and children all dying, he continued a 
widower ; nor could he be prevailed upon to marry again, 
not even Agrippina herself, at that time left a widow by 
the death of Domitius, who had employed all her blan- 

1 A. U. C. 751. 



GALBA. 413 

dishments to allure him to her embraces, while he was a 
married man ; insomuch that Lepida's mother, when in 
company with several married women, rebuked her for it, 
and even went so far as to cuff her. Most of all he courted 
the empress Livia, 1 by whose favour, while she was living, 
he made a considerable figure, and narrowly missed being 
enriched by the will which she left at her death ; in which 
she distinguished him from the rest of the legatees, by a 
legacy of fifty millions of sesterces. But because the sum 
was expressed in figures, and not in words at length, it 
was reduced by her heir, Tiberius, to five hundred thou- 
sand : even this he never received. 2 

VI. Filling the great offices before the age required for 
it by law, during his prsetorship, at the celebration of 
games in honour of the goddess Flora, he presented the 
new spectacle of elephants walking upon ropes. He was 
then governor of the province of Aquitania for near a 
year, and soon afterwards took the consulship in the usual 
course, and held it for six months. 3 It so happened that 
he succeeded L. Domitius, the father of Nero, and was 
succeeded by Salvius Otho, father to the emperor of that 
name ; so that his holding it between the sons of these 
two men, looked like a presage of his future advancement 
to the empire. Being appointed by Caius Caesar 4 to su- 
persede Gaetulicus in his command, the day after his join- 
ing the legions, he put a stop to their plaudits in a public 

1 The widow of the emperor Augustus. 

2 Suetonius seems to have forgotten, that, according to his own tes- 
timony, this legacy, as well as those left by Tiberius, was paid by 
Caligula. " Legata ex testamento Tiberii, quamquam abolito, sed et 
Julice Augusta, quod Tiberius suppresserat, cum fide, ac sine culumnid 
reprce.sentata persolvit." Calig. c. xvi. 

3 a. u. c. 786. 

* Caius Caesar Caligula. He gave the command of the legions in 
Germany to Galba. 



4 i4 SUETONIUS. 

spectacle, by issuing" an order, " That they should keep 
their hands under their cloaks." Immediately upon which, 
the following verse became very common in the camp : 

Disce, miles, militare : Galba est, non Gaetulicus. 

Learn, soldier, now in arms to use your hands, 
'Tis Galba, not Gaetulicus, commands. 

With equal strictness, he would allow of no petitions for 
leave of absence from the camp. He hardened the sol- 
diers, both old and young, by constant exercise ; and 
having quickly reduced within their own limits the bar- 
barians who had made inroads into Gaul, upon Caius's 
coming into Germany, he so far recommended himself 
and his army to that emperor's approbation, that, amongst 
the innumerable troops drawn from all the provinces 
of the empire, none met with higher commendation, 
or greater rewards from him. He likewise distinguished 
himself by heading an escort, with a shield in his hand ; l 
and running at the side of the emperor's chariot twenty 
miles together. 

VII. Upon the news of Caius's death, though many ear- 
nestly pressed him to lay hold of that opportunity of seiz- 
ing the empire, he chose rather to be quiet. On this 
account, he was in favour with Claudius, and being receiv- 
ed into the number of friends, stood so high in his good 
opinion, that the expedition to Britain 2 was for some time 
suspended, because he was suddenly seized with a slight 
indisposition. He governed Africa, as pro-consul, for 
two years ; being chosen out of the regular course to 

1 " Scuto moderatus;" another reading in the parallel passage of 
Tacitus is scuto immodice oneratus, burdened with the heavy weight of 
a shield. 

2 It would appear that Galba was to have accompanied Claudius in 
his expedition to Britain ; which is related before, Claudius, c. xvii. 



GALBA. 415 

restore order in the province, which was in great disorder 
from civil dissensions, and the alarms of the barbarians. His 
administration was distinguished by great strictness and 
equity, even in matters of small importance. A soldier 
upon some expedition being charged with selling, in a 
great scarcity of corn, a bushel of wheat, which was all 
he had left, for a hundred denarii, he forbad him to be 
relieved by anybody, when he came to be in want himself; 
and accordingly he died of famine. When sitting in judg- 
ment, a cause being brought before him about some beast 
of burden, the ownership of which was claimed by two 
persons ; the evidence being slight on both sides, and it 
being difficult to come at the truth, he ordered the beast 
to be led to the pond at which he had used to be watered, 
with his head muffled up, and the covering being there 
removed, that he should be the property of the person 
whom he followed of his own accord, after drinking-. 

VIII. For his achievements, both at this time in Africa, 
and formerly in Germany, he received the triumphal or- 
naments, and three sacerdotal appointments, one among 
The Fifteen, another in the college of Titius, and .a 
third amongst the Augustals ; and from that time to the 
middle of Nero's reign, he lived for the most part in re- 
tirement. He never went abroad so much as to take the 
air, without a carriage attending him, in which there was a 
million of sesterces in gold ready at hand ; until at last, 
at the time he was living in the town of Fundi, the pro- 
vince of Hispanic Tarraconensis was offered him. After 
his arrival in the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a 
temple, a boy who attended with a censer, became all on 
a sudden grey-headed. This incident was regarded by 
some as a token of an approaching revolution in the 
government, and that an old man would succeed a young 
one : that is that he would succeed Nero. And not long 



4i 6 SUETONIUS. 

after, a thunderbolt falling into a lake in Cantabria, * 
twelve axes were found in it ; a manifest sign of the su- 
preme power. 

IX. He governed the province during eight years, his 
administration being of an uncertain and capricious char- 
acter. At first he was active, vigorous, and indeed exces- 
sively severe, in the punishment of offenders. For, a 
money-dealer having committed some fraud in the way of 
his business, he cut off his hands, and nailed them tq his 
counter. Another, who had poisoned an orphan, to whom 
he was guardian, and next heir to the estate, he crucified. 
On this delinquent imploring the protection of the law, 
and crying out that he was a Roman citizen, he affected 
to afford him some alleviation, and to mitigate his punish- 
ment, by a mark of honour, ordered a cross, higher than 
usual, and painted white, to be erected for him. But by 
degrees he gave himself up to a life of indolence and in- 
activity, from the fear of giving Nero any occasion of 
jealousy, and because, as he used to say, " Nobody was 
obliged to render an account of their leisure hours." He 
was holding a court of justice on the circuit at New Car- 
thage, 2 when he received intelligence of the insurrection 
in Gaul ; 3 and while the lieutenant of Aquitania was 
soliciting his assistance, letters were brought from Vindex, 
requesting him " to assert the rights of mankind, and put 
himself at their head to relieve them from the tyranny of 
Nero." Without any long demur, he accepted the invita- 
tion, from a mixture of fear and hope. For he had dis- 
covered that private orders had been sent by Nero to his 
procurators in the province to get him dispatched ; and he 
was encouraged to the enterprise, as well by several 

1 It has been remarked before, that the Cantabria of the ancients is 
now the province of Biscay. 

2 Now Carthagena. 8 A. u. c. 821. 



GALBA. 417 

auspices and omens, as by the prophecy of a young woman 
of good family. The more so, because the priest of Jupi- 
ter at Clunia, 1 admonished by a dream, had discovered 
in the recesses of the temple some verses similar to those 
in which she had delivered her prophecy. These had 
also been uttered by a girl under divine inspiration, 
about two hundred years before. The import of the 
verses was, " That in time, Spain should give the world a 
lord and master." 

X. Taking his seat on the tribunal, therefore, as if there 
was no other business than the manumitting of slaves, he 
had the effigies of a number of persons who had been 
condemned and put to death by Nero, set up before him, 
whilst a noble youth stood by, who had been banished, 
and whom he had purposely sent for from one of the 
neighbouring Balearic isles ; and lamenting the condition 
of the times, and being thereupon unanimously saluted 
by the title of Emperor, he publicly declared himself "only 
the lieutenant of the senate and people of Rome." Then 
shutting the courts, he levied legions and auxiliary troops 
among the provincials, besides his veteran army consisting 
of one legion, two wings of horse, and three cohorts. Out 
of the military leaders most distinguished for age and pru- 
dence, he formed a kind of senate, with whom to advise 
upon all matters of importance, as often as occasion should 
require. He likewise chose several young men of the 
equestrian order, who were to be allowed the privilege of 
wearing the gold ring, and, being called " The Reserve," 
should mount guard before his bed-chamber, instead of 
the legionary soldiers. He likewise issued proclamations 
throughout the provinces of the empire, exhorting all to 
rise in arms unanimously, and aid the common cause, by 
all the ways and means in their power. About the same 

s 1 Now Corunna. 

27 



418 SUETONIUS. 

time, in fortifying a town, which he had pitched upon as a 
military post, a ring was found, of antique workmanship, 
in the stone of which was engraved the goddess Victory 
with a trophy. Presently after, a ship of Alexandria ar- 
rived at Dertosa, 1 loaded with arms, without any person 
to steer it, or so much as a single sailor or passenger on 
board. From this incident, nobody entertained the least 
doubt but the war upon which they were entering was 
just and honourable, and favoured likewise by the gods ; 
when all on a sudden the whole design was exposed to 
failure. One of the two wings of horse, repenting of the 
violation of their oath to Nero, attempted to desert him 
upon his approach to the camp, and were with some diffi- 
culty kept in their duty. And some slaves which had 
been presented to him by a freedman of Nero's, on pur- 
pose to murder him, had like to have killed him as he 
went through a narrow passage to the bath. Being over- 
heard to encourage one another not to lose the opportu- 
nity, they were called to an account concerning it; and 
recourse being had to the torture, a confession was ex- 
torted from them. 

XI. These dangers were followed by the death of Vin- 
dex, at which being extremely discouraged, as if fortune 
had quite forsaken him, he had thoughts of putting an end 
to his own life ; but receiving advice by his messengers 
from Rome that Nero was slain, and that all had taken an 
oath to him as emperor, he laid aside the title of lieuten- 
ant, and took upon him that of Caesar. Putting himself 
upon his march in his general's cloak, and a dagger hang- 
ing from his neck before his breast, he did not resume the 
use of the toga, until Nymphidius Sabinus, prefect of the 
pretorian guards at Rome, with the two lieutenants, 
Fonteius Capito in Germany, and Claudius Macer in 
1 Tortosa, on the Ebro. 



GALBA. 



419 



Africa, who opposed his advancement, were all put 
down. 

XII. Rumours of his cruelty and avarice had reached 
the city before his arrival ; such as that he had punished 
some cities of Spain and Gaul, for not joining him readily, 
by the imposition of heavy taxes, and some by levelling 
their walls ; and had put to death the governors and pro- 
curators with their wives and children : likewise that a 
golden crown, of fifteen pounds weight, taken out of the 
temple of Jupiter, with which he was presented by the 
people of Tarracona, he had melted down, and had ex- 
acted from them three ounces which were wanting in the 
weight. This report of him was confirmed and increased, 
as soon as he entered the town. For some seamen who 
had been taken from the fleet, and enlisted among the 
troops by Nero, he obliged to return to their former con- 
dition ; but they refusing to comply, and obstinately cling- 
ing to the more honourable service under their eagles 
and standards, he not only dispersed them by a body of 
horse, but likewise decimated them. He also disbanded 
a cohort of Germans, which had been formed by the pre- 
ceding emperors, for their body guard, and upon many 
occasions found very faithful ; and sent them back into 
their own country, without giving them any gratuity, pre- 
tending that they were more inclined to favour the ad- 
vancement of Cneius Dolabella, near whose gardens they 
encamped, than his own. The following ridiculous stories 
were also related of him ; but whether with or without 
foundation, I know not ; such as, that when a more sump- 
tuous entertainment than usual was served up, he fetched 
a deep groan ; that when one of the stewards presented 
him with an account of his expenses, he reached him a 
dish of legumes from his table as a reward for his care 
and diligence ; and when Canus, the piper, had played 



420 SUETONIUS. 

much to his satisfaction, he presented him, with his own 
hand, five denarii taken out of his pocket. 

XIII. His arrival, therefore, in the town was not very 
agreeable to the people ; and this appeared at the next 
public spectacle. For when the actors in a farce began 
a well-known song, 

Venit, io, Simus 1 a villa : 
Lo ! Clodpate from his village comes : 

all the spectators, with one voice, went on with the rest, 
repeating and acting the first verse several times over. 

XIV. He possessed himself of the imperial power with 
more favour and authority than he administered it, al- 
though he gave many proofs of his being an excellent 
prince : but these were not so grateful to the people, as 
his misconduct was offensive. He was governed by three 
favourites, who, because they lived in the palace, and were 
constantly about him, obtained the name of his peda- 
gogues. These were Titus Vinius who had been his lieuten- 
ant in Spain, a man of insatiable avarice ; Cornelius Laco, 
who, from an assessor to the prince, was advanced to be 
prefect of the pretorian guards, a person of intolerable 
arrogance, as well as indolence ; and his freedman Icelus, 
dignified a little before with the privilege of wearing the 
gold ring, and the use of the cognomen Martianus, who 
became a candidate for the highest honour within the 
reach of any person of the equestrian order. 2 He re- 
signed himself so implicitly into the power of those three 
favourites, who governed in every thing according to the 
capricious impulse of their vices and tempers, and his au- 
thority was so much abused by them, that the tenor of his 

*" Simus," literally, flat-nosed, was a cant word, used for a clown ; 
Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long retire- 
ment. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain his farm. 

2 The command of the pretorian guards. 



GALBA. 421 

conduct was not very consistent with itself. At one time, 
he was more rigorous and frugal, at another, more lavish 
and negligent, than became a prince who had been chosen 
by the people, and was so far advanced in years. He 
condemned some men of the first rank in the senatorian 
and equestrian orders, upon a very slight suspicion, and 
without trial. He rarely granted the freedom of the city 
to any one ; and the privilege belonging to such as had 
three children, only one or two ; and that with great diffi- 
culty, and only for a limited time. When the judges peti- 
tioned to have a sixth decury added to their number, he 
not only denied them, but abolished the vacation which 
had been granted to them by Claudius for the winter, and 
the beginning of the year. 

XV. It was thought that he likewise intended to reduce 
the offices held by senators and men of the equestrian 
order, to a term of two years' continuance ; and to bestow 
them only on those who were unwilling to accept them, and 
had refused them. All the grants of Nero he recalled, 
saving only the tenth part of them. For this purpose he 
gave a commission to fifty Roman knights ; with orders, 
that if players or wrestlers had sold what had been 
formerly given them, it should be exacted from the pur- 
chasers, since the others, having, no doubt spent the 
money, were in a condition to pay. But on the other 
hand, he suffered his attendants and freedmen to sell or 
give away the revenue of the state, or immunities from 
taxes, and to punish the innocent, or pardon criminals, at 
pleasure. Nay, when the Roman people were very 
clamorous for the punishment of Halotus and Tigellinus, 
two of the most mischievous amongst all the emissaries of 
Nero, he protected them, and even bestowed on Halotus 
one of the best procurations in his disposal. And as to 
Tigellinus, he even reprimanded the people for their 
cruelty by a proclamation. 



422 SUETONIUS. 

XVI. By this conduct he incurred the hatred of all or- 
ders of the people, but especially of the soldiery. For 
their commanders having promised them in his name a 
donative larger than usual, upon their taking the oath to 
him before his arrival at Rome ; he refused to make it 
good, frequently bragging, "that it was his custom to 
choose his soldiers, not buy them." Thus the troops be- 
came exasperated against him in all quarters. The pre- 
torian guards he alarmed with apprehensions of danger 
and unworthy treatment ; disbanding many of them occa- 
sionally as disaffected to his government, and favourers 
of Nymphidius. But most of all, the army in Upper 
Germany was incensed against him, as being defrauded 
of the rewards due to them for the service they had ren- 
dered in the insurrection of the Gauls under Vindex. 
They were, therefore, the first who ventured to break into 
open mutiny, refusing upon the calends [the ist] of Jan- 
uary, to take any oath of allegiance, except to the senate ; 
and they immediately dispatched deputies to the pretorian 
troops, to let them know, " they did not like the emperor 
who had been set up in Spain," and to desire that " they 
would make choice of another, who might meet with the 
approbation of all the armies." 

XVII. Upon receiving intelligence of this, imagining 
that he was slighted not so much on account of his age, 
as for having no children, he immediately singled out of a 
company of young persons of rank, who came to pay 
their compliments to him, Piso Frugi Licinianus, a youth 
of noble descent and great talents, for whom he had be- 
fore contracted such a regard, that he had appointed him 
in his will the heir both of his estate and name. Him he 
now styled his son, and taking him to the camp, adopted 
him in the presence of the assembled troops, but without 
making any mention of a donative. This circumstance 



GALBA. 423 

afforded the better opportunity to Marcus Salvius Otho 
of accomplishing his object, six days after the adoption. 

XVIII. Many remarkable prodigies had happened from 
the very beginning of his reign, which forewarned him of 
his approaching fate. In every town through which he 
passed in his way from Spain to Rome, victims were slain 
on the right and left of the roads ; and one of these, 
which was a bull, being maddened with the stroke of the 
axe, broke the rope with which it was tied, and running 
straight against his chariot, with his fore-feet elevated, be- 
spattered him with blood. Likewise, as he was alighting, 
one of the guard, being pushed forward by the crowd, 
had very nearly wounded him with his lance. And upon 
his entering the city and, afterwards, the palace, he was 
welcomed with an earthquake, and a noise like the bel- 
lowing of cattle. These signs of ill-fortune were followed 
by some that were still more apparently such. Out of all 
his treasures he had selected a necklace of pearls and 
jewels, to adorn his statue of Fortune at Tusculum, But 
it suddenly occurring to him that it deserved a more au- 
gust place, he consecrated it to the Capitoline Venus ; 
and next night, he dreamt that Fortune appeared to him, 
complaining that she had been defrauded of the present 
intended her, and threatening to resume what she had 
given him. Terrified at this denunciation, at break of day 
he sent forward some persons to Tusculum, to make pre- 
parations for a sacrifice which might avert the displeasure 
of the goddess ; and when he himself arrived at the place, 
he found nothing but some hot embers upon the altar, 
and an old man in black standing by, holding a little in- 
cense in a glass, and some wine in an earthen pot. It 
was remarked, too, that whilst he was sacrificing upon the 
calends of January, the chaplet fell from his head, and 
upon his consulting the pullets for omens, they flew away. 



424 SUETONIUS. 

F&rther, upon the day of his adopting Piso, when he was 
to harangue the soldiers, the seat which he used upon 
those occasions, through the neglect of his attendants, was 
not placed, according to custom, upon his tribunal ; and 
in the senate-house, his curule chair was set with the back 
forward. 

XIX. The day before he was slain, as he was sacrificing 
in the morning, the augur warned him from time to time 
to be upon his guard, for that he was in danger from as- 
sassins, and that they were near at hand. Soon after, he 
was informed, that Otho was in possession of the pre- 
torian camp. And though most of his friends advised 
him to repair thither immediately, in hopes that he might 
quell the tumult by his authority and presence, he re- 
solved to do nothing more than keep close within the 
palace, and secure himself by guards of the legionary 
soldiers, who were quartered in different parts about the 
city. He put on a linen coat of mail, however ; remark- 
ing at the same time, that it would avail him little against 
the points of so many swords. But being tempted out 
by false reports, which the conspirators had purposely 
spread to induce him to venture abroad — some few of 
those about him too hastily assuring him that the tumult 
had ceased, the mutineers were apprehended, and the 
rest coming to congratulate him, resolved to continue firm 
in their obedience — he went forward to meet them with 
so much confidence, that upon a soldier's boasting that he 
had killed Otho, he asked him, " By what authority ? " and 
proceeded as far as the forum. There the knights ap- 
pointed to dispatch him, making their way through the 
crowd of citizens, upon seeing him at a distance, halted a 
while ; after which, galloping up to him, now abandoned 
by all his attendants, they put him to death. 

XX, Some authors relate, that upon their first approach 



GALBA. 425 

he cried out, " What do you mean, fellow-soldiers ? I am 
yours, and you are mine," and promised them a donative : 
but the generality of writers relate, that he offered his 
, throat to them, saying, " Do your work, and strike, since 
you are resolved upon it." It is remarkable, that not one 
of those who were at hand, ever made any attempt to 
assist the emperor ; and all who were sent for, disregarded 
the summons, except a troop of Germans. They, in con- 
sideration of his late kindness in showing them particular 
attention during a sickness which prevailed in the camp, 
flew to his aid, but came too late ; for, being not well 
acquainted with the town, they had taken a circuitous 
route. He was slain near the Curtian Lake, 1 and there 
left, until a common soldier returning from the receipt of 
his allowance of corn, throwing down the load which he 
carried, cut off his head. There being upon it no hair, 
by which he might hold it, he hid it in the bosom of his 
dress ; but afterwards thrusting his thumb into the mouth, 
he carried it in that manner to Otho, who gave it to the 
drudges and slaves who attended the soldiers ; and they, 
fixing it upon the point of a spear, carried it in derision 
round the camp, crying out as they went along, " You take 
your fill of joy in your old age." They were irritated to 
this pitch of rude banter, by a report spread a few days 
before, that, upon some one's commending his person as 
still florid and vigorous, he replied, 

"Et£ /10c /i£vo<; "epLxedoi "eariv* 
My strength, as yet, has suffered no decay. 

A freedman of Patrobius's, who himself had belonged to 
Nero's family, purchased the head from them at the price 
of a hundred gold pieces, and threw it into the place 
where, by Galba's order, his patron had been put to 

1 In the Forum. See Augustus, c. lvii. 2 II. v. 254. 



426 SUETONIUS. 

death. At last, after some time, his steward Argius 
buried it, with the rest of his body, in his own gardens 
near the Aurelian Way. 

XXI. In person he was of a good size, bald before, 
with blue eyes,. and an aquiline nose; and his hands and 
feet were so distorted with the gout, that he could neither 
wear a shoe, nor turn over the leaves of a book, or so 
much as hold it. He had likewise an excrescence in his 
right side, which hung down to that degree, that it was 
with difficulty kept up by a bandage. 

XXII. He is reported to have been a great eater, and 
usually took his breakfast in the winter-time before day. 
At supper, he fed very heartily, giving the fragments 
which were left, by handfuls, to be distributed amongst 
the attendants. 

XXIII. He perished in the seventy-third year of his 
age, and the seventh month of his reign. 1 The senate, as 
soon as they could with safety, ordered a statue to be 
erected for him upon the naval column, in that part of the 
forum where he was slain. But Vespasian cancelled the 
decree, upon a suspicion that he had sent assassins from 
Spain into Judea to murder him. 



Galba was, for a private man, the most wealthy of any who had ever 
aspired to the imperial dignity. He valued himself upon his being 
descended from the family of the Servii, but still more upon his rela- 
tion to Quintus Catulus Capitolinus, celebrated for integrity and virtue. 
He was likewise distantly related to Livia, the wife of Augustus ; by 
whose interest he was preferred from the station which he held in the 
palace, to the dignity of consul ; and who left him a great legacy at her 
death. His parsimonious way of living, and his aversion to all super- 
fluity or excess, were construed into avarice as soon as he became em- 
peror; whence Plutarch observes, that the pride he took in his tem- 

1 a. u. c. 822. 



GALBA. 427 

perance and economy was unseasonable. While he endeavoured to re- 
form the profusion* in the public expenditure, which prevailed in the 
reign of Nero, he ran into the opposite extreme • and it is objected to 
him by some historians, that he maintained not the imperial dignity 
in a degree consistent with decency. He was not sufficiently attentive 
either to his own security or the tranquillity of the state, when he re- 
fused to pay the soldiers the donative which he had promised them. 
This breach of faith seems to be the only act in his life that affects his 
integrity; and it contributed more to his ruin than even the odium 
which he incurred by the open venality and rapaciousness of his favour- 
ites, particularly Vinius. 



M. SALVIUS OTHO. 



I. The ancestors of Otho were originally of the town 
of Ferentum, of an ancient and honourable family, and, 
indeed, one of the most considerable in Etruria. His 
grandfather, M. Salvius Otho (whose father was a Roman 
knight, but his mother of mean extraction, for it is not 
certain whether she was free-born), by the favour of Livia 
Augusta, in whose house he had his education, was made 
a senator, but never rose higher than the praetorship. His 
father, Lucius Otho, was by the mother's side nobly de- 
scended, allied to several great families, and so dearly 
beloved by Tiberius, and so much resembled him in his 
features, that most people believed Tiberius was his 
father. He behaved with great strictness and severity, 
not only in the city offices, but in the pro-consulship of 
Africa, and some extraordinary commands in the army. 
He had the courage to punish with death some soldiers 
in Illyricum, who, in the disturbance attempted by Camil- 
lus, upon changing their minds, had put their generals to 
the sword, as promoters of that insurrection against Clau- 
dius. He ordered the execution to take place in the front 
of the camp, 1 and under his own eyes ; though he knew 
they had been advanced to higher ranks in the army by 
Claudius, on that very account. By this action he acquired 

1 On the esplanade, where the standards, objects of religious rever- 
ence, were planted. See note to c. vi. Criminals were usually execu- 
ted outside the Vallum, and in the presence of a centurion. 
428 







THE EMPEROR OT 






OTHO. 429 

fame, but lessened his favour at court; which, however, 
he soon recovered, by discovering to Claudius a design 
upon his life, carried on by a Roman knight, 1 and which 
he had learnt from some of his slaves. For the senate 
ordered a statue of him to be erected in the palace ; an 
honour which had been conferred but upon very few be- 
fore him. And Claudius advanced him to the dignity of 
a patrician, commending him, at the same time, in the 
highest terms, and concluding with these words : " A man, 
than whom I don't so much as wish to have children that 
should be better." He had two sons by a very noble 
woman, Albia Terentia, namely, Lucius Titianus, and a 
younger called Marcus, who had the same cognomen as 
himself. He had also a daughter, whom he contracted 
to Drusus, Germanicus's son, before she was of marriage- 
able age. 

II. The emperor Otho was born upon the fourth of the 
calends of May [28th April], in the consulship of Camil- 
lus Aruntius and Domitius ^Enobarbus. 2 He was from 
his earliest youth so riotous and wild, that he was often 
severely scourged by his father. He was said to run 
about in the night-time, and seize upon any one he met, 
who was either drunk or too feeble to make resistance, 
and toss him in a blanket. 3 After his father's death, to 
make his court more effectually to a freedwoman about 
the palace, who was in great favour, he pretended to be 
in love with her, though she was old and almost decrepit. 
Having by her means got into Nero's good graces, he soon 
became one of the principal favourites, by the congeniality 
of his disposition to that of the emperor. He had so great 
a sway at court, that when a man of consular rank was 

1 Probably one of the two mentioned in Claudius, c. xiii. 

2 a. u. c. 784 or 785. 

3 " Distento sago impositum in sublime jactare." 



430 SUETONIUS. 

condemned for bribery, having tampered with him for a 
large sum of money, to procure his pardon ; before he 
had quite effected it, he scrupled not to introduce him 
into the senate, to return his thanks. 

III. Having by means of this woman, insinuated him- 
self into all the emperor's secrets, he, upon the day de- 
signed for the murder of his mother, entertained them 
both at a very splendid feast, to prevent suspicion. Pop- 
paea Sabina, for whom Nero entertained such a violent 
passion that he had taken her from her husband * and en- 
trusted her to him, he received, and went through the form 
of marrying her. And not satisfied with obtaining her 
favour, he loved her so extravagantly, that he could not 
with patience bear Nero for his rival. It is certainly be- 
lieved that he not only refused admittance to those who 
were sent by Nero to fetch her, but that, on one occasion, 
he shut him out, and kept him standing before the door, 
mixing prayers and menaces in vain, and demanding back 
again what was entrusted to his keeping. His pretended 
marriage, therefore, being dissolved, he was sent lieuten- 
ant into Lusitania. This treatment of him was thought 
sufficiently severe, because harsher proceedings might 
have brought the whole farce to light, which notwith- 
standing, at last came out, and was published to the world 
in the following distich ; — 

Cur Otho mentitus sit, quaeritis, exul honore ? 

Uxoris moechus caeperat esse suae. 
You ask why Otho's banish' d ? Know, the cause 
Comes not within the verge of vulgar laws, 
Against all rules of fashionable life, 
The rogue had dared to sleep with his own wife. 

He governed the province in quality of quaestor for ten 
years, with singular moderation and justice. 

1 See Nero, c. xxxv. 



OTHO. 431 

IV. As soon as an opportunity of revenge offered, he 
readily joined in Galba's enterprises, and at the same 
time conceived hopes of obtaining the imperial dignity for 
himself. To this he was much encouraged by the state 
of the times, but still more by the assurances given him by 
Seleucus, the astrologer, who, having formerly told him 
that he would certainly out-live Nero, came to him at that 
juncture unexpectedly, promising him again that he should 
succeed in the empire, and that in a very short time. He, 
therefore, let slip no opportunity of making his court to 
every one about him by all manner of civilities. As often 
as he entertained Galba at supper, he distributed to every 
man of the cohort which attended the emperor on guard, 
a gold piece ; endeavouring likewise to oblige the rest of 
the soldiers in one way or another. Being chosen an 
arbitrator by one who had a dispute with his neighbour 
about a piece of land, he bought it, and gave it to him ; so 
that now almost every body thought and said, that he was 
the only man worthy of succeeding to the empire. 

V. He entertained hopes of being adopted by Galba, 
and expected it every day. But finding himself disap- 
pointed, by Piso's being preferred before him, he turned 
his thoughts to obtaining his purpose by the use of vio- 
lence ; and to this he was instigated, as well by the great- 
ness of his debts, as by resentment at Galba's conduct 
towards him. For he did not conceal his conviction, "that 
he could not stand his ground unless he became emperor, 
and that it signified nothing whether he fell by the hands 
of his enemies in the field, or of his creditors in the forum." 
He had a few days before squeezed out of one of the 
emperor's slaves a million of sesterces for procuring him a 
stewardship ; and this was the whole fund he had for 
carrying on so great an enterprise. At first the design 
was entrusted to only five of the guard, but afterward to 



432 SUETONIUS. 

ten others, each of the five naming two. They had every 
one ten thousand sesterces paid down, and were pro- 
mised fifty thousand more. By these, others were drawn 
in, but not many ; from a confident assurance, that when 
the matter came to the crisis, they should have enough to 
join them. 

VI. His first intention was, immediately after the de- 
parture of Piso, to seize the camp, and fall upon Galba 
whilst he was at supper in the palace ; but he was re- 
strained by a regard for the cohort at that time on duty, 
lest he should bring too great an odium upon it ; because 
it happened that the same cohort was on guard before, 
both when Caius was slain, and Nero deserted. For 
some time afterwards, he was restrained also by scruples 
about the omens, and by the advice of Seleucus. Upon 
the day fixed at last for the enterprise, having given his 
accomplices notice to wait for him in the forum near the 
temple of Saturn, at the gilded mile-stone, 1 he went in the 
morning to pay his respects to Galba; and being received 
with a kiss as usual, he attended him at sacrifice, and 
heard the predictions of the augur. 2 A freedman of his, 

1 The Milliare Aureum was a pillar of stone set up at the top of the 
forum, from which all the great military roads throughout Italy started, 
the distances to the principal towns being marked upon it. Dio (lib. 
liv.) says that it was erected by the emperor Augustus, when he was 
curator of the roads. 

2 Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur, denoted any person who foretold fu- 
turity, or interpreted omens. There was at Rome a body of priests, 
or college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell future events, 
chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and from other 
appearances. They were of the greatest authority in the Roman state ; 
for nothing of importance was done in public affairs, either at home or 
abroad, in peace or war, without consulting them. The Romans de- 
rived the practice of augury chiefly from the Tuscans ; and anciently 
their youth used to be instructed as carefully in this art, as afterwards 
they were in the Greek literature. For this purpose, by a decree of the 



OTHO. 433 

then bringing him word that the architects were come, 
which was the signal agreed upon, he withdrew, as if it 
were with a design to view a house upon sale, and went 
out by a back-door of the palace to the place appointed. 
Some say he pretended to be seized with an ague fit, and 
ordered those about him to make that excuse for him, if 
he was inquired after. Being then quickly concealed in a 
woman's litter, he made the best of his way for the camp. 
But the bearers growing tired, he got out, and began to 
run. His shoe becoming loose, he stopped again, but 
being immediately raised by his attendants upon their 
shoulders, and unanimously saluted by the title of Em- 
peror, he came amidst auspicious acclamations and drawn 
swords into the Principia 1 in the camp ; all who met him 
joining in the cavalcade, as if they had been privy to the 
design. Upon this, sending some soldiers to dispatch 
Galba and Piso, he said nothing else in his address to the 
soldiery, to secure their affections, than these few words : 
" I shall be content with whatever ye think fit to leave 
me." 

VII. Towards the close of the day, he entered the sen- 
ate, and after he had made a short speech to them, pre- 
tending that he had been seized in the streets, and com- 
pelled by violence to assume the imperial authority, which 
he designed to exercise in conjunction with them, he re- 
senate, a certain number of the sons of the leading men at Rome was 
sent to the twelve states of Etruria for instruction. 

1 See before, note, c. i. The Principia was a broad open space, 
which separated the lower part of the Roman camp from, the upper, 
and extended the whole breadth of the camp. In this place was 
erected the tribunal of the general, when he either administered justice 
or harangued the army. Here likewise the tribunes held their courts, 
and punishments were inflicted. The principal standards of the army, 
as it has been already mentioned, were deposited in the Principia ; and 
in it also stood the altars of the gods, and the images of the emperors, 
by which the soldiers swore. 
28 



434 SUETONIUS. 

tired to the palace. Besides other compliments which he 
received from those who flocked about him to congratu- 
late and flatter him, he was called Nero by the mob, and 
manifested no intention of declining that cognomen. 
Nay, some authors relate, that he used it in his official 
acts, and the first letters he sent to the governors of prov- 
inces. He suffered all his images and statues to be re- 
placed, and restored his procurators and freedmen to 
their former posts. And the first writing which he signed 
as emperor, was a promise of fifty millions of sesterces 
to finish the Golden-house. 1 He is said to have been 
greatly frightened that night in his sleep, and to have 
groaned heavily ; and being found, by those who came 
running in to see what the matter was, lying upon the 
floor before his bed, he endeavoured by every kind of 
atonement to appease the ghost of Galba, by which he 
had found himself violently tumbled out of bed. The 
next day, as he was taking the omens, a great storm aris- 
ing, and sustaining a grievous fall, he muttered to himself 
from time to time : 

TV yap p.ot xal fiaxpolq abko'iq f 

What business have I the loud trumpets to sound ? 

VIII. About the same time, the armies in Germany took 
an oath to Vitellius as emperor. Upon receiving this in- 
telligence, he advised the senate to send thither deputies, 
to inform them, that a prince had been already chosen ; 
and to persuade them to peace and a good understand- 
ing. By letters and messengers, however, he offered Vi- 

1 See Nero, c. xxxi. The sum estimated as requisite for its comple- 
tion amounted to $10,500,000 of our money. 

2 The two last words, literally translated, mean "long trumpets;" 
such as were used at sacrifices. The sense is, therefore, " What have I 
to do, my hands stained with blood, with performing religious ceremo- 
nies !'" 



OTHO. 435 

tellius to make him his colleague in the empire, and his 
son-in-law. But a war being now unavoidable, and the 
generals and troops sent forward by Vitellius, advancing, 
he had a proof of the attachment and fidelity of the pre- 
torian guards, which had nearly proved fatal to the sena- 
torian order. It had been judged proper that some arms 
should be given out of the stores, and conveyed to the 
fleet by the marine troops. While they were employed 
in fetching these from the camp in the night, some of the 
guards suspecting treachery, excited a tumult; and sud- 
denly the whole body, without any of their officers at 
their head, ran to the palace, demanding that the entire 
senate should be put to the sword ; and having repulsed 
some of the tribunes who endeavoured to stop them, and 
slain others, they broke, all bloody as they were, into the 
banquetting room, inquiring for the emperor ; nor would 
they quit the place until they had seen him. He now en- 
tered upon his expedition against Vitellius with great 
alacrity, but too much precipitation, and without any re- 
gard to the ominous circumstances which attended it. 
For the Ancilia} had been taken out of the temple of 
Mars, for the usual procession, but were not yet replaced; 
during which interval it had of old been looked upon as 
very unfortunate to engage in any enterprise. He like- 
wise set forward upon the day when the worshippers of 
the Mother of the gods 2 begin their lamentations and 

1 The Anciie was a round shield, said to have fallen from heaven in 
the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of Mars. It was kept 
with great care in the sanctuary of the temple, as a symbol of the per- 
petuity of the Roman empire ; and that it might not be stolen, eleven 
others were made exactly similar to it. 

2 This ideal personage, who has been mentioned before, Augustus, 
c. lxviii., was the goddess of Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called also 
Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna, Mater, &c. She was painted as a matron, 
crowned with towers, sitting in a chariot drawn by lions. A statue of 



436 SUETONIUS. 

wailing. Besides these, other unlucky omens attended 
him, For, in a victim offered to Father Dis, 1 he found 
the signs such as upon all other occasions are regarded 
as favourable ; whereas, in that sacrifice, the contrary in- 
timations are judged the most propitious. At his first 
setting forward, he was stopped by inundations of the 
Tiber ; and at twenty miles' distance from the city, found 
the road blocked up by the fall of houses. 

IX. Though it was the general opinion that it would be 
proper to protract the war, as the enemy were distressed 
by famine and the straitness of their quarters, yet he re- 
solved with equal rashness to force them to an engage- 
ment as soon as possible; whether from impatience of pro- 
longed anxiety, and in the hope of bringing matters to an 
issue before the arrival of Vitellius, or because he could 
not resist the ardour of the troops, who were all clamor- 
ous for battle. He was not, however, present at any of 
those which ensued, but stayed behind at Brixellum. 2 He 
had the advantage in three slight engagements, near the 
Alps, about Placentia, and a place called Castor's ; 3 but 
was, by a fraudulent stratagem of the enemy, defeated in 

her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome, in the time of the sec- 
ond Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests, called the Galli 
and Corybantes, were eunuchs ; and worshipped her with the sound of 
drums, tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were dis- 
graced by great indecencies. 

1 Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, jfupiter Infernus, and Stygnis. He 
was the brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions. His wife 
was Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she was 
gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, in Sicily. The victims offered 
to the infernal gods were black : they were killed with their faces bent 
downwards ; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was 
poured into a ditch. 

2 A town between Mantua and Cremona. 

3 The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from Cremona. 
Tacitus gives some details of this action. Hist. ii. 243. 



OTHO. 



437 



the last and greatest battle at Bedriacum. 1 For, some 
hopes of a conference being given, and the soldiers being 
drawn up to hear the conditions of peace declared, very 
unexpectedly, and amidst their mutual salutations, they 
were obliged to stand to their arms. Immediately upon 
this he determined to put an end to his life, more, as 
many think, and not without reason, out of shame, at per- 
sisting in a struggle for the empire to the hazard of the 
public interest and so many lives, than from despair, or 
distrust of his troops. For he had still in reserve, and in 
full force, those whom he had kept about him for a second 
trial of his fortune, and others were coming up from Dal- 
matia, Pannonia, and Mcesia ; nor were the troops lately 
defeated so far discouraged as not to be ready, even of 
themselves, to run all risks in order to wipe off their recent 
disgrace. 

X. My father, Suetonius Lenis, 2 was in this battle, 

1 Both Greek and Latin authors differ in the mode of spelling the 
name of this place, the first syllable being written Beb, Bet, and Bret. 
It is now a small village called Labino, between Cremona and Verona. 

2 Lenis was a name of similar signification with that of Tranquillus, 
borne by his son, the author of the present work. We find from Taci- 
tus, that there was, among Otho's generals, in this battle, another per- 
son of the name of Suetonius, whose cognomen was Paulinus; with 
whom our author's father must not be confounded. Lenis was only a 
tribune of the thirteenth legion, the position of which in the battle is 
mentioned by Tacitus, Hist. xi. 24, and was angusticlavius, wearing 
only the narrow stripe, as not being of the senatorial order ; while 
Paulinus was a general, commanding a legion, at least, and a consular 
man ; having filled that office A. u. c. &18. There seems no doubt 
that Suetonius Paulinus was the same general who distinguished him- 
self by his successes and cruelties in Britain. Nero, c. xviii., and 
note. 

Not to extend the present note, we may shortly refer to our author's 
having already mentioned his grandfather (Caligula, c. xix.); besides 
other sources from which he drew his information. He tells us that he 
himself was then a boy. We have now arrived at the times in which 



438 SUETONIUS. 

being at that time an angusticlavian tribune in the thir- 
teenth legion. He used frequently to say, that Otho, be- 
fore his advancement to the empire, had such an abhor- 
rence of civil war, that once, upon hearing an account 
given at table of the death of Cassius and Brutus, he fell 
into a trembling, and that he never would have interfered 
with Galba, but that he was confident of succeeding in his 
enterprise without a war. Moreover, that he was then 
encouraged to despise life by the example of a common 
soldier, who bringing news of the defeat of the army, and 
finding that he met with no credit, but was railed at for a 
liar and a coward, as if he had run away from the field of 
battle, fell upon his sword at the emperor's feet ; upon the 
sight of which, my father said that Otho cried out, " that 
he would expose to no farther danger such brave men, 
who had deserved so well at his hands." Advising there- 
fore his brother, his brother's son, and the rest of his 
friends, to provide for their security in the best manner 
they could, after he had embraced and kissed them, he 
sent them away ; and them withdrawing into a private 
room by himself, he wrote a letter of consolation to his 
sister, containing two sheets. He likewise sent another 
to Messalina, Nero's widow, whom he had intended to 
marry, committing her the care of his relics and memory. 
He then burnt all the letters which he had by him, to 
prevent the danger and mischief that might otherwise 
befall the writers from the conqueror. What ready money 
he had, he distributed among his domestics. 

XL And now being prepared, and just upon the point 
of dispatching himself, he was induced to suspend the 

his father bore a part. Such incidental notices, dropped by historical 
writers, have a certain value in enabling us to form a judgment on the 
genuineness of their narratives as to contemporaneous, or recent, 
events. 



OTHO. 439 

execution of his purpose by a great tumult which had 
broken out in the camp. Finding that some of the sol- 
diers who were making off had been seized and de- 
tained as deserters, " Let us add," said he, " this night to 
our life." These were his very words. He then gave 
orders that no violence should be offered to any one ; and 
keeping his chamber-door open until late at night, he 
allowed all who pleased the liberty to come and see him. 
At last, after quenching his thirst with a draught of cold 
water, he took up two poniards, and having examined the 
points of both, put one of them under his pillow, and shut- 
ting his chamber-door, slept very soundly, until, awaking 
about break of day, he stabbed himself under the left pap. 
Some persons bursting into the room upon his first groan, 
he at one time covered, and at another exposed his wound 
to the view of the bystanders, and thus life soon ebbed 
away. His funeral was hastily performed, according to 
his own order, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and 
ninety-fifth day of his reign. 1 

XII. The person and appearance of Otho no way cor- 
responded to the great spirit he displayed on this occa- 
sion ; for he is said to have been of low stature, splay- 
footed, and bandy-legged. He was, however, effeminately 
nice in the care of his person : the hair on his body he 
plucked out by the roots ; and because he was somewhat 
bald, he wore a kind of peruke, so exactly fitted to his 
head, that nobody could have known it for such. He used 
to shave every day, and rub his face with soaked bread ; 
the use of which he began when the down first appeared 
upon his chin, to prevent his having any beard. It is said 
likewise that he celebrated publicly the sacred rites of 
Isis, 2 clad in a linen garment, such as is used by the wor- 

1 A. U. C. 823. 

2 Jupiter, to prevent the discovery of his amour with Io, the daugh- 



1 

44o SUETONIUS. 

shippers of that goddess. These circumstances, I imagine, 
caused the world to wonder the more that his death was 
so little in character with his life. Many of the soldiers 
who were present, kissing and bedewing with their tears 
his hands and feet as he lay dead, and celebrating hrm as 
"a most gallant man, and an incomparable emperor," im- 
mediately put an end to their own lives upon the spot, 
not far from his funeral pile. Many of those likewise who 
were at a distance, upon hearing the news of his death, in 
the anguish of their hearts, began fighting amongst them- 
selves, until they dispatched one another. To conclude : 
the generality of mankind, though they hated him whilst 
living, yet highly extolled him after his death ; insomuch 
that it was the common talk and opinion, " that Galba had 
been driven to destruction by his rival, not so much for 
the sake of reigning himself, as of restoring Rome to its 
ancient liberty." 



It is remarkable, in the fortune of this emperor, that he owed both 
his elevation and catastrophe to the inextricable embarrassments in 
which he was involved ; first, in respect of pecuniary circumstances, 
and next, of political. He was not, so far as we can learn, a follower 
of any of the sects of philosophers which justified, and even recom- 
mended suicide, in particular cases : yet he perpetrated that act with 
extraordinary coolness and resolution ; and, what is no less remarkable, 
from the motive, as he avowed, of public expediency only. It was ob- 
served of him, for many years after his death, that " none ever died like 
Otho." 

ter of the river Inachus, transformed her into a heifer, in which meta- 
morphosis she was placed by Juno under the watchful inspection of Ar- 
gus ; but flying into Egypt, and her keeper being killed by Mercury, 
she recovered her human shape, and was married to Osiris. Her hus- 
band afterwards became a god of the Egyptians, and she a goddess, 
under the name of Isis. She was represented with a mural crown on 
her head, a cornucopia in one hand, and a sistnim (a musical instru- 
ment) in the other. 




THE 



EMI 1 ' fELLIUS 



AULUS VITELLIUS. 

I. Very different accounts are given of the origin of the 
Vitellian family. Some describe it as ancient and noble, 
others as recent and obscure, nay, extremely mean. I am 
inclined to think, that these several representations have 
been made by the flatterers and detractors of Vitellius, 
after he became emperor, unless the fortunes of the fam- 
ily varied before. There is extant a memoir addressed 
by Quintus Eulogius to Quintus Vitellius, quaestor to the 
Divine Augustus, in which it is said, that the Vitellii were 
descended from Faunus, king of the aborigines, and Vi- 
tellia, 1 who was worshipped in many places as a goddess, 
and that they reigned formerly over the whole of La- 
tium : that all who were left of the family removed out of 
the country of the Sabines to Rome, and were enrolled 
among the patricians : that some monuments of the fam- 
ily continued a long time ; as the Vitellian Way, reaching 
from the Janiculum to the sea, and likewise a colony of 

1 Faunus was supposed to be the third king who reigned over the ori- 
ginal inhabitants of the central parts of Italy, Saturn being the first. 
Virgil makes his wife's name Marica — 

Hunc Fauna, et nympha genitum Laurente Marica 
Accipimus. — ALu. vii. 47. 

Her name may have been changed after her deification ; but we have 
no other accounts than those preserved by Suetonius, of several of the 
traditions handed down from the fabulous ages respecting the Vitellian 
family. 

441 



442 SUETONIUS. 

that name, which, at a very remote period of time, they 
desired leave from the government to defend against the 
^Equicolae, 1 with a force raised by their own family only : 
also that, in the time of the war with the Samnites, some 
of the Vitellii who went with the troops levied for the se- 
curity of Apulia, settled at Nuceria, 2 and their descend- 
ants, a long time afterwards, returned again to Rome, 
and were admitted into the patrician order. On the 
other hand, the generality of writers say that the founder 
of the family was a freedman. Cassius Severus 3 and 
some others relate that he was likewise a cobbler, whose 
son having made a considerable fortune by agencies and 
dealings in confiscated property, begot, by a common 
strumpet, daughter of one Antiochus, a baker, a child, 
who afterwards became a Roman knight. Of these dif- 
ferent accounts the reader is left to take his choice. 

II. It is certain, however, that Publius Vitellius, of Nu- 
ceria, whether of an ancient family, or of low extraction, 
was a Roman knight, and a procurator to Augustus. He 
left behind him four sons, all men of very high station, 
who had the same cognomen, but the different praenomina 
of Aulus, Quintus, Publius, and Lucius. Aulus died in 
the enjoyment of the consulship, 4 which office he bore 
jointly with Domitius, the father of Nero Caesar. He was 
elegant to excess in his manner of living, and notorious 
for the vast expense of his entertainments. Quintus was 
deprived of his rank of senator, yhen, upon a motion 

1 The ^Equicolse were probably a tribe inhabiting the heights in the 
neighbourhood of Rome. Virgil describes them, j£n. vii. 746. 

2 Nuceria, now Nocera, is a town near Mantua ; but Livy, in treating 
of the war with the Samnites, always speaks of Luceria, which Strabo 
calls a town in Apulia. 

3 Cassius Severus is mentioned before, in Augustus, c. lvi. ; Cali- 
gula, c. xvi., &c 

4 a. u. c, 785. 



VITELLIUS. 443 

made by Tiberius, a resolution passed to purge the sen- 
ate of those who were in any respect not duly qualified 
for that honour. Publius, an intimate friend and compan- 
ion of Germanicus, prosecuted his enemy and murderer, 
Cneius Piso, and procured sentence against him. After 
he had been made praetor, being arrested among the ac- 
complices of Sejanus, and delivered into the hands of his 
brother to be confined in his house, he opened a vein with 
a penknife, intending to bleed himself to death. He suf- 
fered, however, the wound to be bound up and cured, not 
so much from repenting the resolution he had formed, as 
to comply with the importunity of his relations. He died 
afterwards a natural death during his confinement. Lu- 
cius, after his consulship, 1 was made governor of Syria, 2 
and by his politic management not only brought Arta-" 
banus, king of the Parthians, to give him an interview, 
but to worship the standards of the Roman legions. He 
afterwards filled two ordinary consulships, 3 and also the 
censorship 4 jointly with the emperor Claudius. Whilst 
that prince was absent upon his expedition into Britain, 5 
the care of the empire was committed to him, being a 
man of great integrity and industry. But he lessened his 
character not a little, by his passionate fondness for an 
abandoned freedwoman, with whose spittle, mixed with 
honey, he used to anoint his throat and jaws, by way of 
remedy for some complaint, not privately nor seldom, but 
daily and publicly. Being extravagantly prone to flattery, 
it was he who gave rise to the worship of Caius Caesar as 
a god, when, upon his return from Syria, he would not 

1 A. U. C 787. 

2 He is frequently commended by Josephus for his kindness to the 
Jews. See, particularly, Antiq. VI. xviii. 

3 a. u. c. 796, 800. 4 a u. c. 801. 
5 a. u. c. 797. See Claudius, c. xvii. 



444 SUETONIUS. 

presume to accost him otherwise than with his head cov- 
ered, turning himself round, and then prostrating himself 
upon the earth. And to leave no artifice untried to se- 
cure the favour of Claudius, who was entirely governed 
by his wives and freedmen, he requested as the greatest 
favour from Messalina, that she would be pleased to let 
him take off her shoes ; which, when he had done, he took 
her right shoe, and wore it constantly betwixt his toga 
and his tunic, and from time to time covered it with 
kisses. He likewise worshipped golden images of Nar- 
cissus and Pallas among his household gods. It was he, 
too, who, when Claudius exhibited the secular games, in 
his compliments to him upon that occasion, used this ex- 
pression, " May you often do the same." 

III. He died of palsy, the day after his seizure with it, 
leaving behind him two sons, whom he had by a most 
excellent and respectable wife, Sextilia. He had lived to 
see them both consuls, the same year and during the 
whole year also ; the younger succeeding the elder for 
the last six months. l The senate honoured him after his 
decease with a funeral at the public expense and with a 
statue in the Rostra, which had this inscription upon the 
base : " One who was stedfast in his loyalty to his prince." 
The emperor Aulus Vitellius, the son of this Lucius, was 
born upon the eighth of the calends of October [24th 
September], or, as some say, upon the seventh of the 
ides of September [7th September], in the consulship of 
Drusus Caesar and Norbanus Flaccus. 2 His parents 
were so terrified with the predictions of astrologers upon 

1 a. u. c. 80 1 1 

2 a. u. c. 767 ; being the year after the death of the emperor Augus- 
tus; from whence it appears that Vitellius was seventeen years older 
than Otho, both being at an advanced age when they were raised to 
the imperial dignity. 



VITELLIUS. 445 

the calculation of his nativity, that his father used his ut- 
most endeavours to prevent his being sent governor into 
any of the provinces, whilst he was alive. His mother, 
upon his being sent to the legions, * and also upon his 
being proclaimed emperor, immediately lamented him as 
utterly ruined. He spent his youth with Tiberius at Capri, 
in all manner of debauchery, which course of life he never 
altered. 

IV. In the subsequent part of his life, being still more 
scandalously vicious, he rose to great favour at court ; 
being upon a very intimate footing with Caius [Caligula], 
because of his fondness for chariot-driving, and with 
Claudius for his love of gaming. But he was in a 
still higher degree acceptable to Nero, as well on the same 
accounts, as for other services which he rendered him. 
When Nero presided in the games instituted by himself, 
though he was extremely desirous to perform amongst the 
harpers, yet his modesty would not permit him, notwith- 
standing the people entreated much for it. Upon his 
quitting the theatre, Vitellius fetched him back again, pre- 
tending to represent the determined wishes of the people, 
and so afforded him the opportunity of yielding to their 
entreaties. 

V. By the favour of these three princes, he was not 
only advanced to the great offices of the state, but to the 
highest dignities of the sacred order ; after which he held 
the proconsulship of Africa, and had the superintendence 
of the public works, in which appointment his conduct, and, 
consequently, his reputation, were very different. For 
he governed the province with singular integrity during 
two years, in the latter of which he acted as deputy to his 
brother, who succeeded him. But in his office in the city, 
he was said to pillage the temples of their gifts and orna- 

1 He was sent to Germany by Galba. 



446 SUETONIUS. 

ments, and to have exchanged brass and tin for gold and 
silver. 1 

VI. He took to wife Petronia, the daughter of a man 
of consular rank, and had by her a son named Petronius, 
who was blind of an eye. The mother being willing to 
appoint this youth her heir, upon condition that he should 
be released from his father's authority, the latter dis- 
charged him accordingly ; but shortly after, as was be- 
lieved, murdered him, charging him with a design upon 
his life, and pretending that he had, from consciousness 
of his guilt, drank the poison he had prepared for his 
father. Soon afterwards, he married Galeria Fundana, 
the daughter of a man of pretorian rank, and had by her 
both sons and daughters. Among the former was one 
who had such a stammering in his speech, that he was 
little better than if he had been dumb. 

VII. He was sent by Galba into Lower Germany, 2 con- 
trary to his expectation. It is supposed that he was as- 
sisted in procuring this appointment by the interest of 
Titus Junius, a man of great influence at that time ; whose 
friendship he had long before gained by favouring the 
same set of charioteers with him in the Circensian games. 
But Galba openly declared that none were less to be 
feared than those who only cared for their bellies, and 
that even his enormous appetite must be satisfied with 
the plenty of that province ; so that it is evident he was 
selected for that government more out of contempt than 
kindness. It is certain, that when he was to set out, he 

1 Julius Caesar, also, was said to have exchanged brass for gold in the 
Capitol, Julius, c. liv. The tin which we here find in use at Rome, 
was probably brought from the Cassiterides, now the Scilly islands, 
whence it had been an article of commerce by the Phcenicians and 
Carthaginians from a very early period. 

2 a. u. c. 821. 



VITELLIUS. 447 

had not money for the expenses of his journey ; he being 
at that time so much straitened in his circumstances, that 
he was obliged to put his wife and children, whom he left 
at Rome, into a poor lodging which he hired for them, in 
order that he might let his own house for the remainder 
of the year ; and he pawned a pearl taken from his mo- 
ther's ear-ring, to defray his expenses on the road. A 
crowd of creditors who were waiting to stop him, and 
amongst them the people of Sineussa and Formia, whose 
taxes he had converted to his own use, he eluded, by 
alarming them with the apprehension of false accusations. 
He had, however, sued a certain freedman, who was clam- 
orous in demanding a debt of him, under pretence that 
he had kicked him ; which action he would not withdraw, 
until he had wrung from the freedman fifty thousand ses- 
terces. Upon his arrival in the province, the army, which 
was disaffected to Galba, and ripe for insurrection, re- 
ceived him with open arms, as if he had been sent them 
from heaven. It was no small recommendation to their 
favour, that he was the son of a man who had been thrice 
consul, was in the prime of life, and of an easy, prodigal 
disposition. This opinion, which had been long enter- 
tained of him, Vitellius confirmed by some late practices ; 
having kissed all the common soldiers whom he met with 
upon the road, and been excessively complaisant in the 
inns and stables to the muleteers and travellers ; asking 
them in a morning, if they had got their breakfasts, and 
letting them see, by belching, that he had eaten his. 

VIII. After he had reached the camp, he denied no man 
any thing he asked for, and pardoned all who lay under 
sentence for disgraceful conduct or disorderly habits. 
Before a month, therefore, had passed, without regard to 
the day or season, he was hurried by the soldiers out of 
his bed-chamber, although it was evening, and he in an 



448 SUETONIUS. 

undress, and unanimously saluted by the title of Emperor. 1 
He was then carried round the most considerable towns 
in the neighbourhood, with the sword of the Divine Ju- 
lius in his hand ; which had been taken by some person 
out of the temple of Mars, and presented to him when he 
was first saluted. Nor did he return to the pretorium 
until his dining-room was in flames from the chimney's 
taking fire. Upon this accident, all being in consterna- 
tion, and considering it as an unlucky omen, he cried out, 
" Courage, boys ! it shines brightly upon us." And this 
was all he said to the soldiers. The army of the Upper 
Province, likewise, which had before declared against 
Galba for the senate, joining in the proceedings, he very 
eagerly accepted the cognomen of Germanicus, offered 
him by the unanimous consent of both armies, but de- 
ferred assuming that of Augustus, and refused for ever 
that of Caesar. 

IX. Intelligence of Galba's death arriving soon after, 
when he had settled his affairs in Germany he divided his 
troops into two bodies, intending to send one of them 
before him against Otho, and to follow with the other 
himself. The army he sent forward had a lucky omen ; 
for, suddenly, an eagle came flying up to them on the 
right, and having hovered round the standards, flew gently 
before them on their road. But, on the other hand, when 
he began his own march, all the equestrian statues, which 
were erected for him in several places, fell suddenly down 
with their legs broken ; and the laurel crown, which he 
had put on as emblematical of auspicious fortune, fell off 
his head into a river. Soon afterwards, at Vienne, 2 as he 
was upon the tribunal administering justice, a cock perched 

1 a. u. c. 822. 
2 Vienne was a very ancient city of the province of Narbonne, famous 
in ecclesiastical history as the early seat of a bishopric in Gaul. 



VITELLIUS. 449 

upon his shoulder, and afterwards upon his head. The 
issue corresponded to these omens ; for he was not able 
to keep the empire which had been secured for him by 
his lieutenants. 

X. He heard of the victory at Bedriacum, 1 and the 
death of Otho, whilst he was yet in Gaul, and without the 
least hesitation, by a single proclamation, disbanded all 
the pretorian cohorts, as having, by their repeated trea- 
sons, set a dangerous example to the rest of the army ; 
commanding them to deliver up their arms to his tribunes. 
A hundred and twenty of them, under whose hands he 
had found petitions presented to Otho, for rewards of 
their service in the murder of Galba, he besides ordered 
to be sought out and punished. So far his conduct de- 
served approbation, and was such as to afford hope of his 
becoming an excellent prince, had he not managed his other 
affairs in a way more corresponding with his own disposi- 
tion, and his former manner of life, than to the imperial 
dignity. For, having begun his march, he rode through 
every city in his route in a triumphal procession ; and sailed 
down the rivers in ships, fitted out with the greatest ele- 
gance, and decorated with various kinds of crowns, amidst 
the most extravagant entertainments. Such wa*s the want 
of discipline, and the licentiousness both in his family and 
army, that, not satisfied with the provision every where 
made for them at the public expense, they committed 
every kind of robbery and insult upon the inhabitants, 
setting slaves at liberty as they pleased ; and if any dared 
to make resistance, they dealt blows and abuse, frequent- 
ly wounds, and sometimes slaughter amongst them. 
When he reached the plains on which the battles were 
fought, 2 some of those around him being offended at the 
smell of the carcases which lay rotting upon the ground, 

1 See Otho, c. ix. a See Otho, c. xi. 

29 



45© SUETONIUS. 

he had the audacity to encourage them by a most detesta- 
ble remark, " That a dead enemy smelt not amiss, espe- 
cially if he were a fellow-citizen." To qualify, however, 
the offensiveness of the stench, he quaffed in public a gob- 
let of wine, and with equal vanity and insolence distri- 
buted a large quantity of it among his troops. On his 
observing a stone with an inscription upon it to the mem- 
ory of Otho, he said, " It was a mausoleum good enough 
for such a prince." He also sent the poniard, with which 
Otho killed himself, to the colony of Agrippina, * to be 
dedicated to Mars. Upon the Appenine hills he cele- 
brated a Bacchanalian feast. 

XI. At last he entered the City with trumpets sounding, 
in his general's cloak, and girded with his sword, amidst 
a display of standards and banners ; his attendants being 
all in the military habit, and the arms of the soldiers un- 
sheathed. Acting more and more in open violation of all 
laws, both divine and human, Jie assumed the office of 
Pontifex Maximus, upon the day of the defeat at the Allia ; 2 
ordered the magistrates to be elected for ten years of 
office ; and made himself consul for life. To put it out 
of all doubt what model he intended to follow in his 
government of the empire, he made his offerings to the 
shade of Nero in the midst of the Campus Martius, and 
with a full assembly of the public priests attending him. 
And at a solemn entertainment, he desired a harper who 
pleased the company much, to sing something in praise 

1 Agrippina, the wife of Nero and mother of Germanicus, founded a 
colony on the Rhine at the place of her birth. Tacit. Annal. b. xii. 
It became a flourishing city, and its origin may be traced in its modern 
name, Cologne. 

2 A dies nonfastus, an unlucky day in the Roman calendar, being the 
anniversary of the great defeat by the Gauls on the river Allia, which 
joins the Tiber about five miles from Rome. This disaster happened 
on the 16th of the calends of August (17th July). 



VITELLIUS. 



451 



of Domitius ; and upon his beginning some songs of 
Nero's, he started up in presence of the whole assembly, 
and could not refrain from applauding him, by clapping 
his hands. 

XII. After such a commencement of his career, he con- 
ducted his affairs, during the greater part of his reign, 
entirely by the advice and direction of the vilest amongst 
the players and charioteers, and especially his freedman 
Asiaticus. This fellow had, when young, been engaged 
with him in a course of riotous living, but, being at last 
quite tired of the occupation, ran away. His master, 
some time after, caught him at Puteoli, selling a liquor 
called Posca, l and put him in chains, but soon released 
him, and retained him in his former capacity. Growing 
weary, however, of his rough and stubborn temper, he sold 
him to a strolling-fencing-master ; after which, when the 
fellow was to have been brought up to play his part at the 
conclusion of an entertainment of gladiators, he suddenly 
carried him off, and at length, upon his being advanced 
to the government of a province, gave him his freedom. 
The first day of his reign, he presented him with the gold 
rings at supper, though in the morning, when all about 
him requested that favour in his behalf, he expressed 
the utmost abhorrence of putting so great a strain 
upon the equestrian order. 

XIII. He was chiefly addicted to the vices of luxury 
and cruelty. He always made three meals a day, some- 
times four ; breakfast, dinner, and supper, and a drunken 
revel after all. This load of victuals he could well 
enough bear, from a custom to which he had enured him- 
self, of frequently vomiting. For these several meals he 

1 Posca was sour wine or vinegar mixed with water, which was used 
by the Roman soldiery as their common drink. It has been found 
beneficial in the cure of putrid diseases. 



452 SUETONIUS. 

would make different appointments at the houses of his 
friends on the same day. None ever entertained him at 
less expense than four hundred thousand sesterces. 1 The 
most famous was a set entertainment given him by his 
brother, at which, it is said, there were served up no less 
than two thousand choice fishes, and seven thousand birds. 
Yet even this supper he himself outdid, at a feast which 
he gave upon the first use of a dish which had been made 
for him, and which, for its extraordinary size, he called 
" The Shield of Minerva." In this dish there were tossed 
up together the livers of char-fish, the brains of pheasants 
and peacocks, with the tongues of flamingos, and the en- 
trails of lampreys, which had been brought in ships of war 
as far as from the Carpathian Sea, and the Spanish 
Straits. He was not only a man of an insatiable appe- 
tite, but would gratify it likewise at unseasonable times, 
and with any garbage that came in his way ; so that, at a 
sacrifice, he would snatch from the fire flesh and cakes, 
and eat them upon the spot. When he travelled, he did 
the same at the inns upon the road, whether the meat was 
fresh dressed and hot, or what had been left the day be- 
fore, and was half-eaten. 

XIV. He delighted in the infliction of punishments, 
and even those which were capital, without any distinction 
of persons or occasions. Several noblemen, his school- 
fellows and companions, invited by him to court, he treat- 
ed with such flattering caresses, as seemed to indicate an 
affection short only of admitting them to share the hon- 
ours of the imperial dignity ; yet he put them all to death 
by some base means or other. To one he gave poison 
with his own hand, in a cup of cold water which he called 
for in a fever. He scarcely spared one of all the usurers, 
notaries, and publicans, who had ever demanded a debt of 
1 Upwards of ^4000 sterling. See note, p. 510. 



VITELLIUS. 453 

him at Rome, or any toll or custom upon the road. One 
of these, while in the very act of saluting him, he ordered 
for execution, but . immediately sent for him back ; upon 
which all about him applauding his clemency, he com- 
manded him to be slain in his own presence, saying, " I 
have a mind to feed my eyes." Two sons who interceded 
for their father, he ordered to be executed with him. A 
Roman knight, upon his being dragged away for execu- 
tion, and crying out to him, " You are my heir," he desired 
to produce his will : and finding that he had made his 
freedman joint heir with him, he commanded that both he 
and the freedman should have their throats cut. He put 
to death some of the common people for cursing aloud 
the blue party in the Circensian games ; supposing it to 
be done in contempt of himself, and the expectation of a 
revolution in the government. There were no persons he 
was more severe against than jugglers and astrologers ; 
and as soon as any one of them was informed against, he 
put him to death without the formality of a trial. He was 
enraged against them, because, after his proclamation by 
which he commanded all astrologers to quit Rome, and 
Italy also, before the calends [the first] of October, a bill 
was immediately posted about the city, with the following 
words : — " Take notice : J The Chaldseans also decree 
that Vitellius Germanicus shall be no more, by the day of 
the said calends." He was even suspected of being ac- 
cessary to his mother's death, by forbidding sustenance to 
be given her when she was unwell ; a German witch, 2 

1 In imitation of the form of the public edicts, which began with the 
words, Bonum Factum. 

2 Catta muliere : The Catta were a German tribe who inhabited the 
present countries of Hesse or Baden. Tacitus, De Mor. G'rm., informs 
us that the Germans placed great confidence in the prophetical inspira- 
tions which they attributed to their women. 



454 



SUETONIUS. 



whom he held' to be oracular, having- told him, " That he 
would long reign in security if he survived his mother." 
But others say, that being quite weary of the state of af- 
fairs, and apprehensive of the future, she obtained without 
difficulty a dose of poison from her son. 

XV. In the eighth month of his reign, the troops both 
in Mcesia and Pannonia revolted from him ; as did like- 
wise, of the armies beyond sea, those in Judaea and Syria, 
some of which swore allegiance to Vespasian as emperor 
in his own presence, and others in his absence. In. order, 
therefore, to secure the favour and affection of the people, 
Vitellius lavished on all around whatever he had it in his 
power to bestow, both publicly and privately, in the most 
extravagant manner. He also levied soldiers in the city, 
and promised all who enlisted as volunteers, not only their 
discharge after the victory was gained, but all the rewards 
due to veterans who had served their full time in the wars. 
The enemy now pressing forward both by sea and land, 
on one hand he opposed against them his brother with a 
fleet, the new levies, and a body of gladiators, and in an- 
other quarter the troops and generals who were engaged 
at Bedriacum. But being beaten or betrayed in every 
direction, he agreed with Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian's 
brother, to abdicate, on condition of having his life spared, 
and a hundred millions of sesterces granted him ; and he 
immediately, upon the palace-steps, publicly declared to a 
large body of soldiers there assembled, " that he resigned 
the government, which he had accepted reluctantly ;" but 
they all remonstrating against it, he deferred the conclu- 
sion of the treaty. Next day, early in the morning, he 
came down to the forum in a very mean habit, and with 
many tears repeated the declaration from a writing which 
he held in his hand ; but the soldiers and people again 
interposing, and encouraging him not to give way, but to 



VITELLIUS. 455 

rely on their zealous support, he recovered his courage, 
and forced Sabinus, with the rest of the Flavian party, 
who now thought themselves secure, to retreat into the 
Capitol, where he destroyed them all by setting fire to the 
temple of Jupiter, whilst he beheld the contest and the fire 
from Tiberius's house, 1 where he was feasting. Not long 
after, repenting of what he had done, and throwing the 
blame of it upon others, he called a meeting, and swore 
" that nothing was dearer to him than the public peace ;" 
which oath he also obliged the rest to take. Then drawing 
a dagger from his side, he presented it first to the consul, 
and, upon his refusing it, to the magistrates, and then to 
every one of the senators ; but none of them being willing 
to accept it, he went away, as if he meant to lay it up in 
the temple of Concord ; but some crying out to him, 
" You are Concord," he came back again, and said that 
he would not only keep his weapon, but for the future use 
the cognomen of Concord. 

XVI. He advised the senate to send deputies, accom- 
panied by the Vestal Virgins, to desire peace, or, at least, 
time for consultation. The day after, while he was waiting 
for an answer, he received intelligence by a scout, that the 
enemy was advancing. Immediately, therefore, throwing 
himself into a small litter, borne by hand, with only two 
attendants, a baker and a cook, he privately withdrew to 
his father's house, on the Aventine hill, intending to escape 
thence into Campania. But a groundless report being 
circulated, that the enemy was willing to come to terms, 
he suffered himself to be carried back to the palace. 

1 Suetonius does not supply any account of the part added "by Tiberius 
to the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine, although, as it will be re- 
collected, he has mentioned or described the works of Augustus, Calig- 
ula, and Nero. The banquetting-room here mentioned would easily 
command a view of the Capitol, across the narrow intervening valley. 
Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian's brother, was prefect of the city. 



456 SUETONIUS. 

Finding, however, nobody there, and those who were 
with him stealing away, he girded round his waist a belt 
full of gold pieces, and then ran into the porter's lodge, 
tying the dog before the door, and piling up against it the 
bed and bedding. 

XVII. By this time the forerunners of the enemy's army 
had broken into the palace, and meeting with nobody, 
searched, as was natural, every corner. Being dragged 
by them out of his cell, and asked " who he was ?" (for 
they did not recognize him), " and if he knew where 
Vitellius was ?" he deceived them by a falsehood. But 
at last being discovered, he begged hard to be detained in 
custody, even were it in a prison ; pretending to have 
something to say which concerned Vespasian's security. 
Nevertheless, he was dragged half-naked into the forum, 
with his hands tied behind him, a rope about his neck, 
and his clothes torn, amidst the most contemptuous abuse, 
both by word and deed, along the Via Sacra ; his head 
being held back by the hair, in the manner of condemned 
criminals, and the point of a sword put under his chin, 
that he might hold up his face to public view ; some of the 
mob, meanwhile, pelting him with dung and mud, whilst 
others called him " an incendiary and glutton." They also 
upbraided him with the defects of his person, for he was 
monstrously tall, and had a face usually very red with 
hard-drinking, a large belly, and one thigh weak, occa- 
sioned by a chariot running against him, as he was attend- 
ing upon Caius, l while he was driving. At length, upon 
the Scalae Gemoniae, he was tormented and put to death 
in lingering tortures, and then dragged by a hook into the 
Tiber. 

XVIII. He perished with his brother and son, 2 in the 

1 Caligula. 
2 Lucius and Germanicus, the brother and son of Vitellius, were slain 
near Terracina; the former was marching to his brother's relief. 



VITELLIUS. 45-7 

fifty-seventh year of his age, 1 and verified the prediction 
of those who, from the omen which happened to him at 
Vienne, as before related, 2 foretold that he would be 
made prisoner by some man of Gaul. For he was seized 
by Antoninus Primus, a general of the adverse party, who 
was born at Toulouse, and, when a boy, had the cogno- 
mon of Becco, 3 which signifies a cock's beak. 



After the extinction of the race of the Caesars, the possession of the 
imperial power became extremely precarious ; and great influence in 
the army was the means which invariably led to the throne. The sol- 
diers having arrogated to themselves the right of nomination, they 
either unanimously elected one and the same person, or different par- 
ties supporting the interests of their respective favourites, there arose 
between them a contention, which was usually determined by an ap- 
peal to arms, and followed by the assassination of the unsuccessful 
competitor. Vitellius, by being a parasite of all the emperors from 
Tiberius to Nero inclusively, had arisen to a high military rank, by 
which, with a spirit of enterprise, and large promises to the soldiery, 
it was not difficult to snatch the reins of government, while they were 
yet fluctuating in the hands of Otho. His ambition prompted to the 
attempt, and his boldness was crowned with success. In the service of 
the four preceding emperors, Vitellius had imbibed the principal vices 
from them all : but what chiefly distinguished him was extreme vora- 
ciousness, which, though he usually pampered it with enormous luxury, 
could not yet be gratified by the vilest and most offensive garbage. 
The pusillanimity discovered by this emperor at his death forms a 
striking contrast to the heroic behaviour of Otho. 

x a. u. c. 822. 2 C. ix. 

3 Becco, from whence the French bee, and English beak; with, pro- 
bably, the family names of Bee or Bek. This distinguished provincial, 
under his latin name of Antoninus Primus, commanded the seventh 
legion in Gaul. His character is well drawn by Tacitus, in his usual 
terse style, Hist, XI. 86. 2. 



T. FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS. 



I. The empire, which had been long thrown into a dis- 
turbed and unsettled state, by the rebellion and violent 
death of its three last rulers, was at length restored to 
peace and security by the Flavian family, whose descent 
was indeed obscure, and which boasted no ancestral hon- 
ours ; but the public had no cause to regret its elevation ; 
though it is acknowledged that Domitian met with the just 
reward of his avarice and cruelty. Titus Flavius Petro, a 
townsman of Reate, 1 whether a centurion or an evocatus 2, 
of Pompey's party in the civil war, is uncertain, fled out 
of the battle of Pharsalia and went home ; where, having 
at last obtained his pardon and discharge, he became a 
collector of the money raised by public sales in the way 
of auction. His son, surnamed Sabinus, was never en- 
gaged in the military service, though some say he was a 
centurion of the first order, and others, that whilst he held 
that rank, he was discharged on account of his bad state 
of health: this Sabinus, I say, was a republican, and re- 
ceived the tax of the fortieth penny in Asia. And there 
were remaining, at the time of the advancement of the 
family, several statues, which had been erected to him by 

1 Reate, the original seat of the Flavian family, was a city of the Sa- 
bines. Its present name is Rieti. 

2 It does not very clearly appear what rank in the Roman armies was 
held by the evocati. They are mentioned on three occasions by Sue- 
tonius, without affording us much assistance. Caesar, like our author, 
joins them with the centurions. See, in particular, Be Bell. Civil. I. 
xvii. 4. 

458 




: EMPEROR VESPASIAN. 



VESPASIAN. 459 

the cities of that province, with this inscription : " To the 
honest Tax-farmer." l He afterwards turned usurer 
amongst the Helvetii, and there died, leaving behind him 
his wife, Vespasia Polla, and two sons by her; the elder 
of whom, Sabinus, came to be prefect of the city, and the 
younger, Vespasian, to be emperor. Polla, descended of 
a good family, at Nursia, 2 had for her father Vespasius 
Pollio, thrice appointed military tribune, and at last prefect 
of the camp ; and her brother was a senator of praetorian 
dignity. There is to this day, about six miles from Nursia, 
on the road to Spoletum, a place on the summit of a hill, 
called Vespasiae, where are several monuments of the 
Vespasii, a sufficient proof of the splendour and anti- 
quity of the family. I will not deny that some have pre- 
tended to say, that Petro's father was a native of Gallia 
Transpadana, 3 whose employment was to hire work-people 
who used to emigrate every year from the country of the 
Umbria into that of the Sabines, to assist them in their 
husbandry; 4 but who settled at last in the town of Reate, 
and there married. But of this I have not been able to 
discover the least proof, upon the strictest inquiry. 

II. Vespasian was born in the country of the Sabines, 
between the Reate, and a little country-seat called Phala- 
crine, upon the fifth of the calends of December [27th 

1 The inscription was in Greek, xaX&q rehoO^ffavn. 

2 In the ancient Umbria, afterwards the duchy of Spoleto ; its modern 
name being Norcia. 

3 Gaul beyond, north of, the Po, now Lombardy. 

4 We find the annual migration of labourers in husbandry a very com- 
mon practice in ancient as well as in modern times. At present, sev- 
eral thousand industrious labourers cross over every summer from the 
duchies of Parma and Modena, bordering on the district mentioned by 
Suetonius, to the island of Corsica ; returning to the continent when 
the harvest is got in. 



460 SUETONIUS. 

November], in the evening, in the consulship of Quintus 
Sulpicius Camerinus and Caius Poppaeus Sabinus, five 
years before the death of Augustus j 1 and was educated 
under the care of Tertulla, his grandmother by the father's 
side, upon an estate belonging to the family, at Cosa. 2 
After his advancement to the empire, he used frequently 
to visit the place where he had spent his infancy ; and the 
villa was continued in the same condition, that he might 
see every thing about him just as he had been used to do. 
And he had so great a regard for the memory of his 
grandmother, that, upon solemn occasions and festival 
days, be constantly drank out of a silver cup which she 
had been accustomed to use. After assuming the manly 
habit, he had a long time a distaste for the senato- 
rian toga, though his brother had obtained it; nor could 
he be persuaded by any one but his mother to sue for 
that badge of honour. She at length drove him to it, 
more by taunts and reproaches, than by entreaties and 
authority, calling him now and then, by way of reproach, 
his brother's footman, He served as military tribune in 
Thrace. When made quaestor, the province of Crete and 
Cyrene fell to him by lot. He was candidate for the aedile- 
ship, and soon after for the praetorship, but met with a 
repulse in the former case ; though at last, with much 
difficulty, he came in sixth on the poll-books. But the 
office of praetor he carried upon his first canvass, stand- 
ing amongst the highest at the poll. Being incensed 
against the senate, and desirous to gain, by all possible 
means, the good graces of Caius, 3 he obtained leave to 

1 a. u. c. 762. A. D. IO. 

2 Cosa was a place in the Volscian territory ; of which Anagni was 
probably the chief town. It lies about forty miles to the north-east of 
Rome. 

3 Caligula. 



IS* 



VESPASIAN. 461 

exhibit extraordinary 1 games for the emperor's victory in 
Germany, and advised them to increase the punishment 
of the conspirators against his life, by exposing their 
corpses unburied. He likewise gave him thanks in that 
august assembly for the honour of being admitted to his 
table. 

III. Meanwhile, he married Flavia Domitilla, who had 
formerly been the mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman 
knight of Sabrata in Africa, who [Domitilla] enjoyed La- 
tin rights ; and was soon after declared fully and freely a 
citizen of Rome, on a trial before the court of Recovery, 
brought by her father Flavius Liberalis, a native of Feren- 
tum, but no more than secretary to a quaestor. By her 
he had the following children : Titus, Domitian, and Domi- 
tilla. He outlived his wife and daughter, and lost them 
both before he became emperor. After the death of his 
wife, he renewed his union 2 with his former concubine, 
Caenis, the freedwoman of Antonia, and also her amanu- 
ensis, and treated her, even after he was emperor, almost 
as if she had been his lawful wife. 3 

1 These games were extraordinary, as being out of the usual course of 
those given by praetors. 

2 " Revocavit in contubernium." From the difference of our habits, 
there is no word in the English language which exactly conveys the 
meaning of contubernium ; a word which, in a military sense, the Ro- 
mans applied to the intimate fellowship between comrades in war who 
messed together, and lived in close fellowship in the same tent. Thence 
they transferred it to a union with one woman who was in a higher po- 
sition than a concubine, but, for some reason, could not acquire the 
legal rights of a wife, as in the case of slaves of either sex. A man of 
rank, also, could not marry a slave or a freedwoman, however much he 
might be attached to her. 

3 Nearly the same phrases are applied by Suetonius to Drusilla, see 
Caligula, c. xxiv., and to Marcella, the concubine of Commodus, by 
Herodian, 1. xvi. 9 , where he says that she had all the honours of an 
empress, except that the incense was not offered to her. These con- 
nections resembled the left-hand marriages of the German princes. 



462 SUETONIUS. 

IV. In the reign of Claudius, by the interest of Narcis- 
sus, he was sent to Germany, in command of a legion ; 
whence being removed into Britain, he engaged the enemy 
in thirty several battles. He reduced under subjection to 
the Romans two very powerful tribes, and above twenty 
great towns, with the Isle of Wight, which lies close to 
the coast of Britain ; partly under the command of Aulus 
Plautius, the consular lieutenant, and partly under Clau- 
dius himself. 1 For this success he received the triumphal 
ornaments, and in a short time after two priesthoods, be- 
sides the consulship, which he held during the last two 
months of the year. 2 The interval between that and his 
proconsulship he spent in leisure and retirement, for fear 
of Agrippina, who still held great sway over her son, and 
hated all the friends of Narcissus, who was then dead. 
Afterwards he got by lot the province of Africa, which he 
governed with great reputation, excepting that once, in an 
insurrection at Adrumetum, he was pelted with turnips. 
It is certain that he returned thence nothing richer; for his 
credit was so low, that he was obliged to mortgage his 
whole property to his brother, and was reduced to the ne- 
cessity of dealing in mules, for the support of his rank ; 
for which reason he was commonly called " the Muleteer." 
He is said likewise to have been convicted of extorting 
from a young man of fashion two hundred thousand ses- 

1 This expedition to Britain has been mentioned before, Claudius, 
c. xvii. and note ; and see ib. xxiv. 

Valerius Flaccus, i. 8, and Silius Italicus, iii. 568, celebrate the tri- 
umphs of Vespasian in Britain. In representing him, however, as car- 
rying his arms among the Caledonian tribes, their flattery transferred 
to the emperor the glory of the victories gained by his lieutenant, 
Agricola. Vespasian's own conquests, while he served in Britain, were 
principally in the territories of the Brigantes, lying north of the Hum- 
ber, and including the present counties of York and Durham. 

2 a. u. c. 804. 



VESPASIAN. 463 

terces for procuring him the broad-stripe, contrary to the 
wishes of his father, and was severely reprimanded for it. 
While in attendance upon Nero in Achaia, he frequently 
withdrew from the theatre while Nero was singing, and 
went to sleep if he remained, which gave so much offence, 
that he was not only excluded from his society, but de- 
barred the liberty of saluting him in public. Upon this, 
he retired to a small out-of-the-way town, where he lay 
skulking in constant fear of his life, until a province, with 
an army, was offered him. 

A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the 
East, 1 that it was fated for the empire of the world, at 
that time, to devolve on some one who should go forth 
from Judaea. This prediction referred to a Roman em- 

1 Tacitus, Hist. V. xiii. 3, mentions this ancient prediction, and its 
currency through the East, in nearly the same terms as Suetonius. The 
coming power is in both instances described in the plural number, pro- 
fecti, " those shall come forth ; " and Tacitus applies it to Titus as well 
as Vespasian. The prophecy is commonly supposed to have reference 
to a passage in Micah, v. 2, " Out of thee [Bethlehem-Ephrata] shall 
He come forth, to be ruler in Israel. ' ' Earlier prophetic intimations of 
a similar character, and pointing to a more extended dominion, have 
been traced in the sacred records of the Jews ; and there is reason to 
believe that these books were at this time not unknown in the heathen 
world, particularly at Alexandria, and through the Septuagint version. 
These predictions, in their literal sense, point to the establishment of a 
universal monarchy, which should take its rise in Judea. The Jews 
looked for their accomplishment in the person of one of their own na- 
tion, the expected Messiah, to which character there were many pre- 
tenders in those times. The first disciples of Christ, during the whole • 
period of his ministry, supposed that they were to be fulfilled in him. 
The Romans thought that the conditions were answered by Vespasian 
and Titus having been called from Judea to the seat of empire. The 
expectations entertained by the Jews, and naturally participated in and 
appropriated by the first converts to Christianity, having proved 
groundless, the prophecies were subsequently interpreted in a spiritual 
sense. 



464 SUETONIUS. 

peror, as the event shewed ; but the Jews, applying it to 
themselves, broke out into rebellion, and having defeated 
and slain their governor, 1 routed the lieutenant of Syria, 2 
a man of consular rank, who was advancing to his assist- 
ance, and took an eagle, the standard of one of his legions. 
As the suppression of this revolt appeared to require a 
stronger force and an active general, who might be safely 
trusted in an affair of so much importance, Vespasian was 
chosen in preference to all others, both for his own acti- 
vity, and on account of the obscurity of his origin and 
name, being a person of whom there could be not the 
least jealousy. Two legions, therefore, eight squadrons 
of horse, and ten cohorts, being added to the former 
troops in Judaea, and, taking with him his eldest son as 
lieutenant, as soon as he arrived in his province, he turn- 
ed the eyes of the neighbouring provinces upon him, by 
reforming immediately the discipline of the camp, and 
engaging the enemy once or twice with such resolution, 
that, in the attack of a castle, 3 he had his knee hurt by 
the stroke of a stone, and received several arrows in his 
shield. 

V. After the deaths of Nero and Galba, whilst Otho and 
Vitellius were contending for the sovereignty, he enter- 
tained hopes of obtaining the empire, with the prospect 
of which he had long before flattered himself, from the 
following omens. Upon an estate belonging to the Fla- 
vian family, in the neighbourhood of Rome, there was an 
old oak, sacred to Mars, which, at the three several deli- 

1 Gessius Florus was at that time governor of Judaea, with the title 
and rank of prepositus, it not being a proconsular province, as the na- 
tive princes still held some parts of it, under the protection and with 
the alliance of the Romans. Gessius succeeded Florus AJbinus, the 
successor of Felix. 

2 Cestius Gallus was consular lieutenant in Syria. 

3 See note to c. vii. 



VESPASIAN. 465 

veries of Vespasia, put out each time a new branch ; evi- 
dent intimations of the future fortune of each child. The 
first was but a slender one, which quickly withered away; 
and accordingly, the girl that was born did not live long. 
The second became vigorous, which portended great good 
fortune ; but the third grew like a tree. His father Sabi- 
nus, encouraged by these omens, which were confirmed 
by the augurs, told his mother, " that her grandson would 
be emperor of Rome ; " at which she laughed heartily, 
wondering, she said, " that her son should be in his 
dotage whilst she continued still in full possession of her 
faculties." 

Afterwards in his sedileship, when Caius Caesar, being 
enraged at his not taking care to have the streets kept 
clean, ordered the soldiers to fill the bosom of his gown 
with dirt, some persons at that time construed it into a 
sign that the government, being trampled under foot and 
deserted in some civil commotion, would fall under his 
protection, and as it were into his lap. Once, while he 
was at dinner, a strange dog that wandered about the 
streets, brought a man's hand, 1 and laid it under the table. 
And another time, while he was at supper, a plough-ox 
throwing the yoke off his neck, broke into the room, and 
after he had frightened away all the attendants, on a sud- 
dren, as if he was tired, fell down at his feet, as he lay 
still upon his couch, and hung down his neck. A cypress- 
tree likewise, in a field belonging to the family, was torn 
up by the roots, and laid flat upon the ground, when there 
was no violent wind ; but next day it rose again fresher 
and stronger than before. 

He dreamt in Achaia that the o-ood fortune of himself 

o 

and his family would begin when Nero had a tooth drawn ; 

1 A right hand was the sign of sovereign power, and, as every one 
knows, borne upon a staff among the standards of the armies. 
3° 



466 SUETONIUS. 

and it happened that the day after, a surgeon coming into 
the hall, showed him a tooth which he had just extracted 
from Nero. In Judaea, upon his consulting the oracle of the 
divinity at Carmel, 1 the answer was so encouraging as to as- 
sure him of success in anything he projected, however great 
or important it might be. And when Josephus, 2 one of the 
noble prisoners, was put in chains, he confidently affirmed 
that he should be released in a very short time by the 
same Vespasian, but he would be emperor first. 3 Some 
omens were likewise mentioned in the news from Rome, 
and among others, that Nero, towards the close of his 
days, was commanded in a dream to carry Jupiter's sacred 
chariot out of the sanctuary where it stood, to Vespasian's 
house, and conduct it thence into the circus. Also not 
long afterwards, as Galba was going to the election in 
which he was created consul for the second time, a statue 
of the Divine Julius 4 turned towards the east. And in 
the field of Bedriacum, 5 before the battle began, two 

1 Tacitus says, " Carmel is the name both of a god and a mountain ; 
but there is neither image nor temple of the god ; such are the ancient 
traditions; we find there only an altar and religious awe." — Hist xi. 
78, 4. It also appears, from his account, that Vespasian offered sacri- 
fice on Mount Carmel, where Basilides, mentioned hereafter, c. vii., 
predicted his success from an inspection of the entrails. 

2 Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, who was engaged in these 
wars, having been taken prisoner, was confined in the dungeon at 
Jotapata, the castle referred to in the preceding chapter, before which 
Vespasian was wounded. — De Ceil. cxi. 14. 

3 The prediction of Josephus was founded on the Jewish prophecies 
mentioned in the note to c. iv., which he, like others, applied to Ves- 
pasian. 

4 Julius Csesar is always called by our author after his apotheosis, 
Divus Julius. 

5 The battle at Bedriacum secured the empire for Vitellius. See 
Otho, c. ix. , Vitellius, c. x. 



VESPASIAN. 467 

eagles engaged in the sight of the army ; and one of them 
being beaten, a third came from the east, and drove away 
the conqueror. 

VI. He made, however, no attempt upon the sovereignty 
though his friends were very ready to support him, and 
even pressed him to the enterprise, until he was encour- 
aged to it by the fortuitous aid of persons unknown to 
him and at a distance. Two thousand men, drawn out of 
three legions in the Mcesian army, had been sent to the 
assistance of Otho. While they were upon their march, 
news came that he had been defeated, and had put an end 
to his life ; notwithstanding which they continued their 
march as far as Aquileia, pretending that they gave no 
credit to the report. There, tempted by the opportunity 
which the disorder of the times afforded them, they rav- 
aged and plundered the country at discretion ; until at 
length, fearing to be called to an account on their return, 
and punished for it, they resolved upon choosing and 
creating an emperor. " For they were no ways inferior," 
they said, " to the army which made Galba emperor, 
nor to the praetorian troops which had set up Otho, nor 
the army in Germany, to whom Vitellius owed his eleva- 
tion." The names of all the consular lieutenants, there- 
fore, being taken into consideration, and one objecting to 
one, and another to another, for various reasons ; at last 
some of the third legion, which a little before Nero's 
death had been removed out of Syria into Mcesia, extolled 
Vespasian in high terms ; and all the rest assenting, his 
name was immediately inscribed on their standards. The 
design was nevertheless quashed for a time, the troops 
being brought to submit to Vitellius a little longer. 

However, the fact becoming known, Tiberius Alexander, 
governor of Egypt, first obliged the legions under his 
command to swear obedience to Vespasian as their em- 






468 SUETONIUS. 

peror, on the calends [the ist] of July, which was observed 
ever after as the day of his accession to the empire ; and 
upon the fifth of the ides of the same month [the 28th 
of July], the army in Judaea, where he then was, also 
swore allegiance to him. What contributed greatly to 
forward the affair, was a copy of a letter, whether real or 
counterfeit, which was circulated, and said to have been 
written by Otho before his decease to Vespasian, recom- 
mending to him in the most urgent terms to avenge his 
death, and entreating him to come to the aid of the com- 
monwealth ; as well as a report which was circulated, that 
Vitellius, after his success against Otho, proposed to change 
the winter quarters of the legions, and remove those in 
Germany to a less hazardous station and a warmer cli- 
mate. Moreover, amongst the governors of provinces, 
Lucinius Mucianus dropping the grudge arising from a 
jealousy of which he had hitherto made no secret, prom- 
ised to join him with the Syrian army, and, among the 
allied kings, Volugesus, king of the Parthians, offered 
him a reinforcement of forty thousand archers. 

VII. Having, therefore, entered on a civil war, and sent 
forward his generals and forces into Italy, he himself, in 
the meantime, passed over to Alexandria, to obtain pos- 
session of the key of Egypt. 1 Here having entered alone, 
without attendants, the temple of Serapis, to take the aus- 
pices respecting the establishment of his power, and hav- 
ing done his utmost to propitiate the deity, upon turning 
round, [his freedman] Basilides 2 appeared before him, 

1 Alexandria may well be called the key, daustra, of Egypt, which 
was the granary of Rome. It was of the first importance that Vespa- 
sian should secure it at this juncture. 

2 Tacitus describes Basilides as a man of rank among the Egyptians, and 
he appears also to have been a priest, as we find him officiating at Mount 
Carmel, c. v. This is so incompatible with his being a Roman freed- 
man, that commentators concur in supposing that the word " libertus," 



VESPASIAN. ; 469 

and seemed to offer him the sacred leaves, chaplets, and 
cakes, according to the usage of the place, although no 
one had admitted him, and he had long laboured under a 
muscular debility, which would hardly have allowed him 
to walk into the temple ; besides which, it was certain that 
at the very time he was far away. Immediately after this, 
arrived letters with intelligence that Vitellius's troops had 
been defeated at Cremona, and he himself slain at Rome. 
Vespasian, the new emperor, having been raised unex- 
pectedly from a low estate, wanted something which might 
clothe him with divine majesty and authority. This, like- 
wise, was now added. A poor man who was blind, and 
another who was lame, came both together before him, 
when he was seated on the tribunal, imploring him to heal 
them, 1 and saying that they were admonished in a dream 
by the god Serapis to seek his aid, who assured them that 
he would restore sight to the one by anointing his eyes 
with his spittle, and give strength to the leg of the other, 
if he vouchsafed but to touch it with his heel. At first he 
could scarcely believe that the thing would any how suc- 
ceed, and therefore hesitated to venture on making the 

although found in all the copies now extant, has crept into the text by- 
some inadvertence of an early transcriber. Basilides appears, like Philo 
Judaeus, who lived about the same period, to have been half-Greek, half- 
Jew, and to have belonged to the celebrated Platonic school of Alex- 
andria. 

1 Tacitus informs us that Vespasian himself believed Basilides to have 
been at this time not only in an infirm state of health, but at the dis- 
tance of several days' journey from Alexandria. But (for his greater 
satisfaction) he strictly examined the priests whether Basilides had en- 
tered the temple on that day : he made inquiries of all he met, whether 
he had been seen in the city ; nay, further, he dispatched messengers on 
horseback, who ascertained that at the time specified, Basilides was more 
than eighty miles from Alexandria. Then Vespasian comprehended that 
the appearance of Basilides, and the answer to his prayers given through 
him, were by divine interposition. Tacit. Hist. iv. 82. 2. 



470 SUETONIUS. 

experiment. At length, however, by the advice of his 
friends, he made the attempt publicly, in the presence of 
the assembled multitudes, and it was crowned with suc- 
cess in both cases. 1 About the same time, at Tegea in 

1 The account given by Tacitus of the miracles of Vespasian is fuller 
than that of Suetonius, but does not materially vary in the details, except 
that, in his version of the story, he describes the impotent man to be 
lame in the hand, instead of the leg or the knee, and adds an important 
circumstance in the case of the blind man, that he was " notus tabe oc- 
culorum," notorious for the disease in his eyes. He also winds up the 
narrative with the following statement : " They who were present, relate 
both these cures, even at this time, when there is nothing to be gained 
by lying. " Both the historians lived within a few years of the occur- 
rence, but their works were not published until advanced periods of 
their lives. The closing remark of Tacitus seems to indicate that, at 
least, he did not entirely discredit the account ; and as for Suetonius, 
his pages are as full of prodigies of all descriptions, related apparently 
in all good faith, as a monkish chronicle of the Middle Ages. 

The story has the more interest, as it is one of the examples of suc- 
cessful imposture, selected by Hume in his Essay on Miracles ; with the 
reply to which by Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, most readers 
are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in con- 
sidering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the patients, and, 
probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the reader as 
most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with the ac- 
counts given of several of the miracles of Christ ; whence it has been 
supposed that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did not 
fall within the scope of Dr. Paley's argument to advert to this; and our 
own brief illustration must be strictly confined within the limits of his- 
torical disquisition. Adhering to this principle, we may point out that 
if the idea of plagiarism be accepted, it receives some confirmation from 
the incident related by our author in a preceding paragraph, forming, 
it may be considered, another scene of the same drama, where we find 
Basilides appearing to Vespasian in the temple of Serapis, under cir- 
cumstances which cannot fail to remind us of Christ's suddenly stand- 
ing in the midst of his disciples, " when the doors were shut." This 
incident, also, has very much the appearance of a parody on the evan- 
gelical history. But if the striking similarity of the two narratives be 
thus accounted for, it is remarkable that while the priests of Alexandria, 
or, perhaps, Vespasian himself from his residence in Judaea, were in 



VESPASIAN. 471 

Arcadia, by the direction of some soothsayers, several 
vessels of ancient workmanship were dug out of a con- 
secrated place, on which there was an effigy resembling 
Vespasian. 

VIII. Returning now to Rome, under these auspices, 
and with a great reputation, after enjoying a triumph for 
victories over the Jews, he added eight consulships 1 to his 
former one. He likewise assumed the censorship, and 
made it his principal concern, during the whole of his 
government, first to restore order in the state, which had 
been almost ruined, and was in a tottering condition, and 
then to improve it. The soldiers, one part of them em- 
boldened by victory, and the other smarting with the dis- 
grace of their defeat, had abandoned themselves to every 
species of licentiousness and insolence. Nay, the prov- 
inces, too, and free cities, and some kingdoms in alliance 
with Rome, were all in a disturbed state. He, therefore, 
disbanded many of Vitellius's soldiers, and punished 
others ; and so far was he from granting any extraor- 
dinary favours to the sharers of his success, that it was 

possession of such exact details of two of Christ's miracles — if not of 
a third striking incident in his history — we should find not the most 
distant allusion in the works of such cotemporary writers as Tacitus and 
Suetonius, to any one of the still more stupendous occurrences which 
had recently taken place in a part of the world with which the Romans 
had now very intimate relations. The character of these authors in- 
duces us to hesitate in adopting the notion, that either contempt or 
disbelief would have led them to pass over such events, as altogether 
unworthy of notice; and the only other inference from their silence is, 
that they had never heard of them. But as this can scarcely be rec- 
onciled with the plagiarism attributed to Vespasian or the Egyptian 
priests, it is safer to conclude that the coincidence, however singular, 
was merely fortuitous. It may be added that Spartianus, who wrote 
the lives of Adrian and succeeding emperors, gives an account of a 
similar miracle performed by that prince in healing a blind man. 
1 a. u. c. 823 — 833, excepting 826 and 831. 



472 



SUETONIUS. 



late before he paid the gratuities due to them by law. 
That he might let slip no opportunity of reforming the 
discipline of the army, upon a young man's coming much 
perfumed to return him thanks for having appointed him 
to command a squadron of horse, he turned away his 
head in disgust, and giving him this sharp reprimand, " I 
had rather you had smelt of garlic," revoked his commis- 
sion. When the men belonging to the fleet, who travel- 
led by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome, petitioned 
for an addition to their pay, under the name of shoe-mo- 
ney, thinking that it would answer little purpose to send 
them away without a reply, he ordered them for the future 
to run bare-footed ; and so they have done ever since. 
He deprived of their liberties, Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, By- 
zantium, and Samos, and reduced them into the form of 
provinces ; Thrace, also, and Cilicia, as well as Comagene, 
which until that time had been under the government of 
kings. He stationed some legions in Cappadocia on ac- 
count of the frequent inroads of barbarians, and, instead 
of a Roman knight, appointed as governor of it a man of 
consular rank. The ruins of houses which had been 
burnt down long before, being a great desight to the city, 
he gave leave to any one who would, to take possession 
of the void ground and build upon it, if the proprietors 
should hesitate to perform the work themselves. He re- 
solved upon rebuilding the Capitol, and was the foremost 
to put his hand to clearing the ground of the rubbish, and 
removed some of it upon his own shoulder. And he un- 
dertook, likewise, to restore the three thousand tables of 
brass which had been destroyed in the fire which con- 
sumed the Capitol ; searching in all quarters for copies of 
those curious and ancient records, in which were contain- 
ed the decrees of the senate, almost from the building of 
the city, as well as the acts of the people, relative to alli- 
ances, treaties, and privileges granted to any person. 



VESPASIAN. 473 

IX. He likewise erected several new public buildings, 
namely, the temple of Peace 1 near the forum, that of 
Claudius on the Ccelian mount, which had been begun by 
Agrippina, but almost entirely demolished by Nero ; 2 and 
an amphitheatre 3 in the middle of the city, upon finding 
that Augustus had projected such a work. He purified 
the senatorian and equestrian orders, which had been 
much reduced by the havoc made amongst them at sev- 
eral times, and was fallen into disrepute by neglect. Hav- 
ing expelled the most unworthy, he chose in their room 
the most honourable persons in Italy and the provinces. 
And to let it be known that those two orders differed not 
so much in privileges as in dignity, he declared publicly 
when some altercation passed between a senator and a 
Roman knight, " that senators ought not to be treated 

1 The temple of Peace, erected a. d. 71, on the conclusion of the 
wars with the Germans and the Jews, was the largest temple in Rome. 
Vespasian and Titus deposited in it the sacred vessels and other spoils 
which were carried in their triumph after the conquest of Jerusalem. 
They were consumed, and the temple much damaged, if not destroyed, 
by fire, towards the end of the reign of Commodus, in the year 191. 
It stood in the Forum, where some ruins on a prodigious scale, still re- 
maining, were traditionally considered to be those of the Temple of 
Peace, until Piranesi contended that they are part of Nero's Golden 
House. Others suppose that they are* the remains of a Basilica. A 
beautiful fluted Corinthian column, forty-seven feet high, which was re- 
moved from this spot, and now stands before the church of S. Maria 
Maggiore, gives a great idea of the splendour of the original structure. 

2 This temple, converted into a Christian church by pope Simplicius, 
whc flourished a. d. 464 — 483, preserves much of its ancient character. 
It is now called San Stefano in Rotondo, from its circular form ; the 
thirty-four pillars, with arches springing from one to the other and in- 
tended to support the cupola, still remaining to prove its former mag- 
nificence. 

3 This amphitheatre is the famous Colosseum begun by Vespasian and 
finished by Titus. It is needless to go into details respecting a building 
the gigantic ruins of which are so well known. 

2^3 



474 SUETONIUS. 

with scurrilous language, unless they were aggressors, 
and then it was fair and lawful to return it." 

X. The business of the courts had prodigiously accumu- 
lated, partly from old law-suits which, on account of the 
interruption that had been given to the course of justice, 
still remained undecided, and partly from the accession of 
new suits arising out of the disorder of the times. He, 
therefore, chose commissioners by lot to provide for the 
restitution of what had been seized by violence during the 
war, and others with extraordinary jurisdiction to decide 
causes belonging to the centumviri, and reduce them to as 
small a number as possible, for the dispatch of which, 
otherwise, the lives of the litigants could scarcely allow 
sufficient time. 

XI. Lust and luxury, from the licence which had long 
prevailed, had also grown to an enormous height. He, 
therefore, obtained a decree of the senate, that a woman 
who formed an union with the slave of another person, 
should be considered a bondwoman herself; and that 
usurers should not be allowed to take proceedings at law 
for the recovery of money lent to young men whilst they 
lived in their father's family, not even after their fathers 
were dead. 

XII. In other affairs, from the beginning to the end of 
his government, he conducted himself with great modera- 
tion and clemency. He was so far from dissembling the 
obscurity of his extraction, that he frequently made men- 
tion of it himself. When some affected to trace his ped- 
igree to the founders of Reate, and a companion of Her- 
cules/ whose monument is still to be seen on the Salarian 
road, he laughed at them for it. And he was so little fond 

1 Hercules is said, after conquering Geryon in Spain, to have come 
into this part of Italy. One of his companions, the supposed founder 
of Reate, may have had the name of Flavus. 



VESPASIAN. 



475 



of external and adventitious ornaments, that, on the day 
of his triumph, 1 being quite tired of the length and 
tediousness of the procession, he could not forbear say- 
ing, " he was rightly served, for having in his old age 
been so silly as to desire a triumph ; as if it was either 
due to his ancestors, or had ever been expected by him- 
self." Nor would he for a long time accept of the tribu- 
nitian authority, or the title of Father of his Country. 
And in regard to the custom of searching those who 
came to salute him, he dropped it even in the time of the 
civil war. 

XIII. He bore with great mildness the freedom used 
by his friends, the satirical allusions of advocates, and the 
petulance of philosophers. Licinius Mucianus, who had 
been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, but, presuming 
upon his great services, treated him very rudely, he re- 
proved only in private ; and when complaining of his con- 
duct to a common friend of theirs, he concluded with 
these words, " However, I am a man." Salvius Liberalis, 
in pleading the cause of a rich man under prosecution, 
presuming to say, "What is it to Caesar, if Hipparchus 
possesses a hundred millions of sesterces ? " he com- 
mended him for it. Demetrius, the Cynic philosopher, 2 who 
had been sentenced to banishment, meeting him on the 
road, and refusing to rise up or salute him, nay, snarling 
at him in scurrilous language, he only called him a cur. 

1 Vespasian and his son Titus had a joint triumph for the conquest of 
Judaea, which is described at length by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 
1 6. The coins of Vespasian exhibiting the captive Judaea (Judaea cap- 
ta), are probably familiar to the reader. See Harphrey's Coin Col- 
lectoi-'' 's Manual \ p. 328. 

2 Demetrius, who was born at Corinth, seems to have been a close 
imitator of Diogenes, the founder of the sect. Having come to Rome 
to study under Apollonius, he was banished to the islands, with other 
philosophers, by Vespasian. 

2~Y 



476 SUETONIUS. 

XIV. He was little disposed to keep up the memory 
of affronts or quarrels, nor did he harbour any resent- 
ment on account of them. He made a very splendid 
marriage for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius, and 
gave her, besides, a suitable fortune and equipage. Being 
in a great consternation after he was forbidden the court 
in the time of Nero, and asking those about him, what he 
should do ? or, whither he should go ? one of those whose 
office it was to introduce people to the emperor, thrusting 
him out, bid him go to Morbonia. 1 But when this same 
person came afterwards to beg his pardon, he only vented 
his resentment in nearly the same words. He was so far 
from being influenced by suspicion or fear to seek the 
destruction of any one, that, when his friends advised him 
to beware of Metius Pomposianus, because it was com- 
monly believed, on his nativity being cast, that he was 
destined by fate to the empire, he made him consul, prom- 
ising for him, that he would not forget the benefit con- 
ferred. 

XV. It will scarcely be found, that so much as one in- 
nocent person suffered in his reign, unless in his absence, 
and without his knowledge, or, at least, contrary to his 
inclination, and when he was imposed upon. Although 
Helvidius Priscus 2 was the only man who presumed to 
salute him on his return from Syria by his private name 
of Vespasian, and, when he came to be praetor, omitted 
any mark of honour to him, or even any mention of him 

1 There being no such place as Morbonia, and the supposed name 
being derived from morbus, disease, some critics have supposed that 
Anticyra, the asylum of the incurables, (see Caligula, c. xxix) is meant ; 
but the probability is, that the expression used by the imperial cham- 
berlain was only a courtly version of a phrase not very commonly 
adopted in the present day. 

2 Helvidius Priscus, a person of some celebrity as a philosopher and 
public man, is mentioned by Tacitus, Xiphilinus, and Arrian. 



VESPASIAN. 477 

in his edicts, yet he was not angry, until Helvidius pro- 
ceeded to inveigh against him with the most scurrilous 
language. Though he did indeed banish him, and after- 
wards ordered him to be put to death, yet he would 
gladly have saved him notwithstanding, and accordingly 
dispatched messengers to fetch back the executioners ; 
and he would have saved him, had he not been deceived 
by a false account brought, that he had already perished. 
He never rejoiced at the death of any man ; nay, he 
would shed tears, and sigh, at the just punishment of the 
guilty. 

XVI. The only thing deservedly blameable in his char- 
acter was his love of money. For not satisfied with re- 
viving the imposts which had been repealed in the time 
of Galba, he imposed new and onerous taxes, augmented 
the tribute of the provinces, and doubled that of some of 
them. He likewise openly engaged in a traffic, which is 
discreditable 1 even to a private individual, buying great 
quantities of goods, for the purpose of retailing them 
again to advantage. Nay, he made no scruple of selling 
the great offices of the state to candidates, and pardons 
to persons under prosecution, whether they were innocent 
or guilty. It is believed, that he advanced all the most 
rapacious amongst the procurators to high offices, with 
the view of squeezing them after they had acquired great 
wealth. He was commonly said, " to have used them as 
sponges," because it was his practice, as we may say, to 
wet them when dry, and squeeze them when wet. It is 
said that he was naturally extremely covetous, and was 
upbraided with it by an old herdsman of his, who, upon 
the emperor's refusing to enfranchise him gratis, which 
on his advancement he humbly petitioned for, cried out, 

1 Cicero speaks in strong terms of the sordidness of retail trade. — Off. 
i. 24. 

iv7 



478 SUETONIUS. 

''That the fox changed his hair, but not his nature." On 
the other hand, some are of opinion, that he was urged 
to his rapacious proceedings by necessity, and the ex- 
treme poverty of the treasury and exchequer, of which 
he took public notice in the beginning of his reign ; de- 
claring that " no less than four hundred thousand millions 
of sesterces were wanting to carry on the government." 
This is the more likely to be true, because he applied to 
the best purposes what he procured by bad means. 

XVII. His liberality, however, to all ranks of people, 
was excessive. He made up to several senators the es- 
tate required by law to qualify them for that dignity ; re- 
lieving likewise such men of consular rank as were poor, 
with a yearly allowance of five hundred thousand sester- 
ces; 1 and rebuilt, in a better manner than before, several 
cities in different parts of the empire, which had been 
damaged by earthquakes or fires. 

XVIII. He was a great encourager of learning and the 
liberal arts. He first granted to the Latin and Greek pro- 
fessors of rhetoric the yearly stipend of a hundred thou- 
sand sesterces 2 each out of the exchequer. He also bought 
the freedom of superior poets and artists, 3 and gave a 

1 The sesterce being worth about two-pence half-penny of English 
money, the salary of a Roman senator was, in round numbers, five 
thousand pounds a year ; and that of a professor, as stated in the suc- 
ceeding chapter, one thousand pounds. From this scale, similar calcu- 
lations may easily be made of the sums occurring in Suetonius' s state- 
ments from time to time. There appears to be some mistake in the 
sum stated in c. xvi. just before, as the amount seems fabulous, whether 
it represented the floating debt, or the annual revenue, of the empire. 

2 See Augustus, c. xliii. The proscenium of the ancient theatres 
was a solid erection of an architectural design, not shifted and varied 
as our stage-scenes. 

3 Many eminent writers among the Romans were originally slaves, 
such as Terence and Phaedrus ; and, still more, artists, physicians and 
artificers. Their talents procuring their manumission, they became the 



VESPASIAN. 479 

noble gratuity to the restorer of the Coan of Venus, 1 and 
to another artist who repaired the Colossus. 2 Some one 
offering to convey some immense columns into the Capi- 
tol at a small expense by a mechanical contrivance, he 
rewarded him very handsomely for his invention, but 
would not accept his service, saying, " Suffer me to find 
maintenance for the poor people." 3 

XIX. In the games celebrated when the stage-scenery 
of the theatre of Marcellus 4 was repaired, he restored the 
old musical entertainments. He gave Apollinaris, the tra- 
gedian, four hundred thousand sesterces, and to Terpinus 
and Diodorus, the harpers, two hundred thousand ; to 
some a hundred thousand ; and the least he gave to any 
of the performers was forty thousand, besides many golden 
crowns. He entertained company constantly at his table, 
and often in great state and very sumptuously, in order 
to promote trade. As in the Saturnalia he made pres- 
ents to the men which they were to carry away with them, 
so did he to the women upon the calends of March ; 5 not- 

freedmen of their former masters. Vespasian, it appears from Sueto- 
nius, purchased the freedom of some persons of ability belonging to 
these classes. 

1 The Coan Venus was the chef d> czuvre of Apelles, a native of the 
island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alex- 
ander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now re- 
stored, it must have been well preserved. 

2 Probably the colossal statue of Nero (see his Life, c. xxxi.), after- 
wards placed in Vespasian's amphitheatre, which derived its name 
from it. 

3 The usual argument in all times against the introduction of ma- 
chinery. 

4 See Augustus, c. xxix. 

6 At the men's Saturnalia, a feast held in December attended with 
much revelling, the masters waited upon their slaves ; and at the wo- 
men's Saturnalia, held on the first of March, the women served their 
female attendants, by whom also they sent presents to their friends. 



4 8o SUETONIUS. 

withstanding which, he could not wipe off the disrepute 
of his former stinginess. The Alexandrians called him 
constantly Cybiosactes ; a name which had been given to 
one of their kings who was sordidly avaricious. ' Nay, at 
his funeral, Favo, the principal mimic, personating him, 
and imitating, as actors do, both his manner of speaking 
and his gestures, asked aloud of the procurators, "how 
much his funeral and the procession would cost ?" And 
being answered "ten millions of sesterces," he cried out, 
"give him but a hundred thousand sesterces, and they 
might throw his body into the Tiber, if they would." 

XX. He was broad-set, strong-limbed, and his features 
gave the idea of a man in the act of straining himself. In 
consequence, one of the city wits, upon the emperor's 
desiring him " to say something droll respecting himself," 
facetiously answered, " I will, when you have done reliev- 
ing your bowels." 1 He enjoyed a good state of health, 
though he used no other means to preserve it, than re- 
peated friction, as much as he could bear, on his neck and 
other parts of his body, in the tennis-court attached to the 
baths, besides fasting one day in every month. 

XXI. His method of life was commonly this. After he 
became emperor, he used to rise very early, often before 
day-break. Having read over his letters, and the briefs 
of all the departments of the government offices, he ad- 
mitted his friends ; and while they were paying him their 

1 Notwithstanding the splendour, and even, in many respects, the 
refinement of the imperial court, the language as well as the habits of 
the highest classes in Rome seem to have been but too commonly of the 
grossest description, and every scholar knows that many of their writers 
are not very delicate in their allusions. Apropos of the ludicrous ac- 
count given in the text, Martial, on one occasion, uses still plainer 
language. 

Utere lactucis, et mollibus utere malvis : 

Nam faciem durum, Phcebe, cacantis habes. — iii. 89. 



VESPASIAN. 481 

compliments, he would put on his own shoes, and dress 
himself with his own hands. Then, after the dispatch of 
such business as was brought before him, he rode out, and 
afterwards retired to repose, lying on his couch with one 
of his mistresses, of whom he kept several after the death 
of Caenis. 1 Coming out of his private apartments, he 
passed to the bath, and then entered the supper-room. 
They say that he was never more good-humoured and 
indulgent than at that time : and therefore his attendants 
always seized that opportunity, when they had any favour 
to ask. 

XXII. At supper, and, indeed, at other times, he was 
extremely free and jocose. For he had humour, but of a 
low kind, and he would sometimes use indecent language, 
such as is addressed to young girls about to be married. 
Yet there are some things related of him not void of in- 
genious pleasantry ; amongst which are the following. 
Being once reminded by Mestrius Florus, that plaustra 
was a more proper expression than plostra, he the next 
day saluted him by the name of Flaurus. 2 A certain lady 
pretending to be desperately enamoured of him, he was 
prevailed upon to admit her to his bed ; and after he had 
gratified her desires, he gave her 3 four hundred thousand 

1 See c. iii. and note. 

2 Probably the emperor had not entirely worn off, or might even af- 
fect the rustic dialect of his Sabine countrymen : for among the pea- j 
santry the au was still pronounced 0, as in plostrum for plaustrum, a 
waggon ; and in orum for aurum, gold, &c. The emperor's retort was 
very happy, Flaurus being derived from a Greek word, which signifies 
worthless, while the consular critic's proper name, Florus, was connect- 
ed with much more agreeable associations. 

3 Some of the German critics think that the passage bears the sense 
of the gratuity having been given by the lady, and that so parsimoni- 
ous a prince as Vespasian was not likely to have paid such a sum as is, 
here stated for a lady's proffered favours. 

3* 






482 SUETONIUS. 

sesterces. When his steward desired to know how he 
would have the sum entered in his accounts, he replied, 
" For Vespasian's being seduced." 

XXIII. He used Greek verses very wittily; speaking 
of a tall man : 

WLaxpa &£aq xpaddcov doAt%6(7xcov ey/os', 

And of Cerylus, a freedman, who being very rich had be- 
gun to pass himself off as free-born, to elude the exche- 
quer at his decease, and assumed the name of Laches, he 
said: 

r G Ad X y)<;, Ad X r^ 

"Exav a.7Coddv7)q, abdiq 1$ «i°/^<? e<nq KrjpuXoq* 

Ah, Laches, Laches ! when thou art no more, 
Thou' It Cerylus be called, just as before. 



He chiefly affected wit upon his own shameful means of 
raising money, in order to wipe off the odium by some 
joke, and turn it into ridicule. One of his ministers, who 
was much in his favour, requesting of him a stewardship 
for some person, under pretence of his being his brother, 
he deferred granting him his petition, and in the mean- 
time sent for the candidate, and having squeezed out of 
him as much money as he had agreed to give to his 
friend at court, he appointed him immediately to the 
office, The minister soon after renewing his application, 
" You must/' said he, " find another brother ; for the one 
you adopted is in truth mine." 

Suspecting once, during a journey, that his mule-driver 
had alighted to shoe his mules, only in order to have an 
opportunity for allowing a person they met, who was en- 
gaged in a law-suit, to speak to him, he asked him, " how 
much he got for shoeing his mules ? " and insisted on 
having a share of the profit. When his son Titus blamed 
him for even laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his 



VESPASIAN. 483 

nose a piece of the money he received in the first instal- 
ment, and asked him, " if it stunk ? " And he replying 
no, "And yet," said he, "it is derived from urine." 

Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large 
statue, which would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be 
erected for him at the public expense, he told them to pay 
it down immediately, holding out the hollow of his hand, 
and saying, " there was a base ready for the statue." Not 
even when he was under the immediate apprehension and 
peril of death, could he forbear jesting. For when, among 
other prodigies, the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly 
flew open, and a blazing star appeared in the heavens ; 
one of the prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, who 
was of the family of Augustus ,* and the other, the king 
of the Parthians, who wore his hair long. And when his 
distemper first seized him, " I suppose." he said, " I shall 
soon be a god." 2 

XXIV. In his ninth consulship, being seized, while in 
Campania, with a slight indisposition, and immediately 
returning to the city, he soon afterwards went thence to 
Cutiliae, 3 and his estates in the country about Reate, where 
he used constantly to spend the summer. Here, though 
his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by 
too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless attended 
to the dispatch of business, and even gave audience to 

« 

1 The Flavian Family had their own tomb. See Domitian, c. v. The 
prodigy, therefore, did not concern Vespasian. As to the tomb of the 
Julian family, see Augustus, c. ci. 

2 Alluding to the apotheosis of the emperors. 

3 Cutiliae was a small lake, about three-quarters of a mile from Reate, 
now called Lago di Contigliano. It was very deep, and being fed from 
springs in the neighbouring hills, the water was exceedingly clear and 
cold, so that it was frequented by invalids, who required invigorating. 
Vespasian's paternal estates lay in the neighbourhood of Reate. See 
chap. i. 



484 SUETONIUS. 

ambassadors in bed. At last, being taken ill of a diar- 
rhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he cried 
out, "An emperor ought to die standing upright." In 
endeavouring to rise, he died in the hands of those who 
were helping him up, upon the eighth of the calends of 
July 1 [24th June], being sixty-nine years, one month, and 
seven days old. 

XXV. All are agreed that he had such confidence in 
the calculations of his own nativity and that of his sons, 
that, after several conspiracies against him, he told the 
senate, that either his sons would succeed him, or nobody. 
It is said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance 
in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly 
poised ; in one scale of which stood Claudius and Nero, 
and in the other, himself and his sons. The event cor- 
responded to the symbol ; for the reigns of the two par- 
ties were precisely of the same duration. 2 



Neither consanguinity nor adoption, as formerly, but great influence 
in the army having now become the road to the imperial throne, no 
person could claim a better title to that elevation than Titus Flavius 
Vespasian. He had not only served with great reputation in the wars 
both in Britain and Judaea, but seemed as yet untainted with any vice 
which could pervert his conduct in the civil administration of the em- 
pire. It appears, however, that he was prompted more by the persua- 
sion of friends, than by his own ambition, to prosecute the attainment 
of the imperial dignity. To render this enterprise more successful, 
recourse was had to a new and peculiar artifice, which, while well ac- 
commodated to the superstitious credulity of the Romans, impressed 
them with an idea, that Vespasian's destiny to the throne was confirmed 
by supernatural indications. But, after his elevation, we hear no more 
of his miraculous achievements. 

1 a. u. c. 832. 
2 Each dynasty lasted twenty-eight years ; Claudius and Nero both 
reigning fourteen ; and, of the Flavius family, Vespasian reigned ten, 
Titus three, and Domitian fifteen. 

.-A 



VESPASIAN. 485 

The prosecution of the war in Britain, which had been suspended for 
some years, was resumed by Vespasian ; and he sent thither Petilius 
Cerealis, who by his bravery extended the limits of the Roman prov- 
ince. Under Julius Frontinus, successor to the general, the invaders 
continued to make farther progress in the reduction of the island : but 
the commander who finally established the dominion of the Romans in 
Britain, was Julius Agricola, not less distinguished for his military 
achievements, than for his prudent regard to the civil administration of 
the country. He began his operations with the conquest of North Wales, 
whence passing over into the island of Anglesey, which had revolted 
since the time of Suetonius Paulinus, he again reduced it to subjection. 
Then proceeding northwards with his victorious army, he defeated the 
Britons in every engagement, took possession of all the territories in 
the southern parts of the island, and driving before him all who refused 
to submit to the Roman arms, penetrated even into the forests and 
mountains of Caledonia. He defeated the natives under Galgacus, their 
leader, in a decisive battle ; and fixing a line of garrisons between the 
friths of Clyde and Forth, he secured the Roman province from the 
incursions of the people who occupied the parts of the island beyond 
that boundary. Wherever he established the Roman power, he intro- 
duced laws and civilization amongst the inhabitants, and employed 
every means of conciliating their affection, as well as of securing their 
obedience. 

The war in Judaea, which had been commenced under the former 
reign, was now continued in that of Vespasian ; but he left the siege of 
Jerusalem to be conducted by his son Titus, who displayed great valour 
and military talents in the prosecution of the enterprise. After an ob- 
stinate defence by the Jews, that city, so much celebrated in the sacred 
writings, was finally demolished, and the glorious temple itself, the ad- 
miration of the world, reduced to ashes ; contrary, however, to the will 
of Titus, who exerted his utmost efforts to extinguish the flames. 

The manners of the Romans had now attained to an enormous pitch 
of depravity, through the unbounded licentiousness of the times ; and, 
to the honour of Vespasian, he discovered great zeal in his endeavours 
to effect a national reformation. Vigilant, active, and persevering, he 
was indefatigable in the management of public affairs, and rose in the 
winter before day-break, to give audience to his officers of state. But 
if we give credit to the whimsical imposition of a tax upon urine, we 
cannot entertain any high opinion, either of his talents as a financier, 
or of the resources of the Roman empire. By his encouragement of 
science, he displayed a liberality, of which there occurs no example 



486 SUETONIUS. 

under all the preceding emperors, since the time of Augustus. Pliny 
the elder was now in the height of reputation, as well as in great favour 
with Vespasian ; and it was probably owing not a little to the advice 
of that minister, that the emperor showed himself so much the patron 
of Literary men. A writer mentioned frequently by Pliny, and who 
lived in this reign, was Licinius Mucianus, a Roman knight : he treated 
of the history and geography of the eastern countries. Juvenal, who 
had begun his Satires several years before, continued to inveigh against 
the flagrant vices of the times ; but the only author whose writings we 
have to notice in the present reign, is a poet of a different class. 





f 



/ 



-3ROR "TITITS 



TITUS FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS 
AUGUSTUS. 

I. Titus, who had the same cognomen with his father, 
was the darling and the delight of mankind ; so much did 
the natural genius, address, or good fortune he possessed 
tend to conciliate the favour of all. This was, indeed, ex- 
tremely difficult, after he became emperor, as before that 
time, and even during the reign of his father, he lay un- 
der public odium and censure. He was born upon the 
third of the calends of January [30th Dec], in the year 
remarkable for the death of Caius, 1 near the Septizonium, 2 
in a mean house, and a very small and dark room, which 
still exists, and is shown to the curious. 

II. He was educated in the palace with Britannicus, and 
instructed in the same branches of learning, and under 
the same masters. During this time, they say, that a 
physiognomist being introduced by Narcissus, the freed- 
man of Claudius, to examine the features of Britannicus, 3 
positively affirmed that he would never become emperor, 
but that Titus, who stood by, would. They -were so famil- 
iar, that Titus being next him at table, is thought to have 

1 Caligula. Titus was born a. u. c. 794 ; about a. d. 49. 

2 The Septizonium was a circular building of seven stories. The re- 
mains of that of Septimus Severus, which stood on the side of the Pal- 
atine Hill, remained till the time of Pope Sixtus V., who removed it, 
and employed thirty-eight of its columns in ornamenting the church of 
St. Peter. It does not appear whether the Septizonium here mentioned 
as existing in the time of Titus, stood on the same spot. 

3 Britannicus, the son of Claudius and Messalina. 

4S7 



488 SUETONIUS. 

tasted of the fatal potion which put an end to Britan- 
nicus's life, and to have contracted from it a distemper 
which hung about him a long time. In remembrance of 
all these circumstances, he afterwards erected a golden 
statue of him in the Palatium, and dedicated to him an 
equestrian statue of ivory ; attending it in the Circensian 
procession, in which it is still carried to this day. 

III. While yet a boy, he was remarkable for his noble 
endowments both of body and mind ; and as he advanced 
in years, they became still more conspicuous. He had a 
fine person, combining an equal mixture of majesty and 
grace; was very strong, though not tall, and somewhat 
corpulent. Gifted with an excellent memory, and a capa- 
city for all the arts of peace and wax ; he was a perfect 
master of the use of arms and riding ; very ready in the 
Latin and Greek tongues, both in verse and prose ; and 
such was the facility he possessed in both, that he would 
harangue and versify extempore. Nor was he unac- 
quainted with music, but could both sing, and play upon 
the harp sweetly and scientifically. I have likewise been 
informed by many persons, that he was remarkably quick 
in writing short-hand, would in merriment and jest engage 
with his secretaries in the imitation of any hand-writing 
he saw, and often say, " that he was admirably qualified 
for forgery." 

IV. He filled with distinction the rank of a military 
tribune both in Germany and Britain, in which he con- 
ducted himself with the utmost activity, and no less mod- 
esty and reputation ; as appears evident from the great 
number of statues, with honourable inscriptions, erected 
to him in various parts of both those provinces. After 
serving in the wars, he frequented the courts of law, but 
with less assiduity than applause. About the same time, 
he married Arricidia, the daughter of Tertullus, who was 



TITUS. 4&9 

only a knight, but had formerly been prefect of the pre- 
torian guards. After her decease, he married Marcia 
Furnilla, of a very noble family, but afterwards divorced 
her, taking from her the daughter he had by her. Upon 
the expiration of his qusestorship, he was raised to the 
rank of commander of a legion, 1 and took the two strong 
cities of Tarichaea and Gamala, in Judaea ; and having his 
horse killed under him in a battle, he mounted another, 
whose rider he had encountered and slain. 

V. Soon afterwards, when Galba came to be emperor, 
he was sent to congratulate him, and turned the eyes of 
all people upon himself, wherever he came ; it being the 
general opinion amongst them, that the emperor had sent 
for him with a design to adopt him for his son. But find- 
ing all things again in confusion, he turned back upon the 
road ; and going to consult the oracle of Venus at Paphos 
about his voyage, he received assurances of obtaining the 
empire for himself. These hopes were speedily strength- 
ened, and being left to finish the reduction of Judaea, in 
the final assault of Jerusalem, he slew seven of its defend- 
ers, with the like number of arrows, and took it upon his 
daughter's birth-day. 2 So great was the joy and attach- 
ment of the soldiers, that, in their congratulations, they 
unanimously saluted him by the title of Emperor; 3 and, 
upon his quitting the province soon afterwards, would 

1 a. u. c. 820. 

2 Jerusalem was taken, sacked, and burnt, by Titus, after a two years' 
siege, on the 8th of September, a. u. c. 821, a. d. 69; it being the 
Sabbath. It was in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, when 
the emperor was sixty years old, and Titus himself, as he informs us, 
thirty. For particulars of the siege, see Josephus, De Bell. J^ud. vi. 
and vii. ; Hegesippus, Excid. Hierosol. v. ; Dio, lxvi. ; Tacitus Hist. 
v. ; Orosius, vii. 9. 

3 For the sense in which Titus was saluted with the title of Eifiperor 
by the troops, see Julius C^sar, c. lxxvi. 



4 9 o SUETONIUS. 

needs have detained him, earnestly begging him, and that 
not without threats, " either to stay, or take them all with 
him." This occurrence gave rise to the suspicion of his 
being engaged in a design to rebel against his father, and 
claim for himself the government of the East; and the 
suspicion increased, when, on his Way to Alexandria, he 
wore a diadem at the consecration of the ox Apis at 
Memphis ; and. though he did it only in compliance with 
an ancient religious usage of the country, yet there were 
some who put a bad construction upon it. Making, there- 
fore, what haste he could into Italy, he arrived first at 
Rhegium, and sailing thence in a merchant ship to Puteoli, 
went to Rome with all possible expedition. Presenting 
himself unexpectedly to his father, he said, by way of 
contradicting the strange reports raised concerning him, 
" I am come, father, I am come." 

VI. From that time he constantly acted as colleague 
with his father, and, indeed, as regent of the empire. He 
triumphed * with his father, bore jointly with him the office 

1 The joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, which was celebrated a. 
u. c. 824, is fully described by Josephus, De Bell. jfud. vii. 24. It is 
commemorated by the triumphal monument called the Arch of Titus, 
erected by the senate and people of Rome after his death, and still 
standing at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on the road leading from the 
Colosseum to the Forum, and is one of the most beautiful as well as the 
most interesting models of Roman art. It consists of four stories of 
the three orders of architecture, the Corinthian being repeated in the 
two highest. Some of the bas-reliefs, still in good preservation, repre- 
sent the table of the shew-bread, the seven-branched golden candle- 
stick, the vessel of incense, and the silver-trumpets, which were taken 
by Titus from the Temple at Jerusalem, and, with the book of the law, 
the veil of the temple, and other spoils, were carried in the triumph. 
The fate cf these sacred relics is rather interesting. Josephus says, that 
the veil and books of the law were deposited in the Palatium, and the 
rest of the spoils in the Temple of Peace. When that was burnt, in 
the reign of Commodus, these treasures were saved, and they were af- 



TITUS. 491 

of censor ; * and was, besides, his colleague not only in 
the tribunitian authority, 2 but in seven consulships. 3 Tak- 
ing upon himself the care and inspection of all offices, he 
dictated letters, wrote proclamations in his father's name, 
and pronounced his speeches in the senate in place of the 
quaestor. He likewise assumed the command of the pre- 
torian guards, although no one but a Roman knight had 
ever before been their prefect. In this he conducted him- 
self with great haughtiness and violence, taking off with- 
out scruple or delay all those he had most reason to sus- 
pect, after he had secretly sent his emissaries into the 
theatres and camp, to demand, as if by general consent, 
that the suspected persons should be delivered up to pun- 
ishment. Among these, he invited to supper A. Caecina, 
a man of consular rank, whom he ordered to be stabbed 
at his departure, immediately after he had gone out of the 
room. To this act, indeed, he was provoked by an immi- 
nent danger ; for he had discovered a writing under the 
hand of Caecina, containing an account of a plot hatched 
among the soldiers. By these acts, though he provided 
for his future security, yet for the present he so much in- 
curred the hatred of the people, that scarcely ever any 
one came to the empire with a more odious character, or 
more universally disliked. 

terwards carried off by Genseric to Africa. Belisarius recovered them, 
and brought them to Constantinople, a. d. 520. Procopius informs us, 
that a Jew, who saw them, told an acquaintance of the emperor that it 
would not be advisable to carry them to the palace at Constantinople, 
as they could not remain anywhere else, but where Solomon had placed 
them. This, he said, was the reason why Genseric had taken the Pa- 
lace at Rome, and the Roman army had in turn taken that of the Van- 
dal kings. Upon this, the emperor was so alarmed, that he sent the 
whole of them to the Christian churches at Jerusalem. 

1 a. u. c. 825. 3 a. u. c. 824. 

3 A.U. C. 823, 825, 827—830, 832. 

id 



492 SUETONIUS. 

VII. Besides his cruelty, he lay under the suspicion of 
giving way to habits of luxury, as he often prolonged his 
revels till midnight with the most riotous of his acquaint- 
ance. Nor was he unsuspected of lewdness, and his well- 
known attachment to queen Berenice, 1 who received from 
him, as it is reported, a promise of marriage. He was 
supposed, besides, to be of a rapacious disposition ; for it 
is certain, that, in causes which came before his father, he 
used to offer his interest for sale, and take bribes. In 
short, people publicly expressed an unfavourable opinion 
of him, and said he would prove another Nero. This 
prejudice, however, turned out in the end to his advan- 
tage, and enhanced his praises to the highest pitch when 
he was found to possess no vicious propensities, but, on 
the contrary, the noblest virtues. His entertainments were 

1 Berenice, whose name is written by our author and others Beronice, 
was daughter of Agrippa the Great, who was by Aristobulus, grandson 
of Herod the Great. Having been contracted to Mark, son of Alex- 
ander Lysimachus, he died before their union, and Agrippa married her 
to Herod, Mark's brother, for whom he had obtained from the emperor 
Claudius the kingdom of Chalcis. Herod also dying, Berenice, then a 
widow, lived with her brother, Agrippa, and was suspected of an inces- 
tuous intercourse with him. It was at this time that, on their way to 
the imperial court at Rome, they paid a visit to Festus, at Csesarea, and 
were present when St. Paul answered his accusers so eloquently before 
the tribunal of the governor. Her fascinations were so great, that, to 
shield herself from the charge of incest, she prevailed on Polemon, 
king of Cilicia, to submit to be circumcised, become a Jew, and 
marry her. That union also proving unfortunate, she appears to 
have returned to Jerusalem, and having attracted Vespasian by magnifi- 
cent gifts, and the young Titus by her extraordinary beauty, she fol- 
lowed them to Rome, after the termination of the Jewish war, and had 
apartments in the palace, where she lived with Titus, " to all appear- 
ance, as his wife," as Xiphilinus informs us ; and there seems no doubt 
that he would have married her, but for the strong prejudices of the 
Romans against foreign alliances. Suetonius tells us with what pain 
they separated. 



TITUS. 493 

agreeable rather than extravagant ; and he surrounded 
himself with such excellent friends, that the succeeding 
princes adopted them as most serviceable to themselves 
and the state. He immediately sent away Berenice from 
the city, much against both their inclinations. Some of 
his old eunuchs, though such accomplished dancers, that 
they bore an uncontrollable sway upon the stage, he was 
so far from treating with any extraordinary kindness, that 
he would not so much as witness their performances in 
the crowded theatre. He violated no private right ; and 
if ever man refrained from injustice, he did ; nay, he would 
not accept of the allowable and customary offerings. Yet, 
in munificence, he was inferior to none of the princes be- 
fore him. Having dedicated his amphitheatre, 1 and built 
some warm baths 2 close by it with great expedition, he 
entertained the people with most magnificent spectacles. 
He likewise exhibited a naval fight in the old Naumachia, 
besides a combat of gladiators ; and in one day brought 
into the theatre five thousand wild leasts of all kinds. 3 

1 The Colosseum : it had been four years in building. See Vespas. 
c. ix. 

2 The Baths of Titus stood on the Esquiline Hill, on part of the 
ground which had been the gardens of Maecenas. Considerable remains 
of them are still found among the vineyards ; vaulted chambers of vast 
dimensions, some of which were decorated with arabesque paintings, 
still in good preservation. Titus appears to have erected a palace for 
himself adjoining ; for the Laocoon, which is mentioned by Pliny as 
standing in this palace, was found in the neighbouring ruins. 

3 If the statements were not well attested, we might be incredulous 
as to the number of wild beasts collected for the spectacles to which 
the people of Rome were so passionately devoted. The earliest account 
we have of such an exhibition, was a. u. c. 502, when one hundred and 
forty-two elephants, taken in Sicily, were produced. Pliny, who gives 
this information, states that lions first appeared in any number, a. u. c. 
652 ; but these were probably not turned loose. In 661, Sylla, when 
he was praetor, brought forward one hundred. In 696, besides lions, 



494 SUETONIUS. 

VIII. He was by nature extremely benevolent ; for . 
whereas all the emperors after Tiberius, according to the 
example he had set them, would not admit the grants 
made by former princes to be valid, unless they received 
their own sanction, he confirmed them all by one general 
edict, without waiting for any applications respecting 
them. Of all who petitioned for any favour, he sent none 
away without hopes. And when his ministers represent- 
ed to him that he promised more than he could perform, 
he replied, " No one ought to go away downcast from an 
audience with his prince." Once at supper, reflecting 
that he had done nothing for any that day, he broke out 
into that memorable and justly-admired saying, " My 

elephants, and bears, one hundred and fifty panthers were shown for the 
first time. At the dedication of Pompey's Theatre, there was the great- 
est exhibition of beasts ever then known ; including seventeen elephants, 
six hundred lions, which were killed in the course of five days, four hun- 
dred and ten panthers, &c. A rhinoceros also appeared for the first 
time. This was a. u. c. 701. The art of taming these beasts was car- 
ried to such perfection, that Mark Antony actually yoked them to his 
carriage. Julius Caesar, in his third dictatorship, a. u. c. 708, showed 
a vast number of wild beasts, among which were four hundred lions and 
a cameleopard. A tiger was exhibited for the first time at the dedica- 
tion of the Theatre of Marcellus, a. u. c. 743. It was kept in a cage. 
Claudius afterwards exhibited four together. The exhibition of Titus, at 
the dedication of the Colosseum, here mentioned by Suetonius, seems to 
have been the largest ever made ; Xiphilinus even adds to the number, 
and says, that including wild-boars, cranes and other animals, no less 
than nine thousand were killed. In the reigns of succeeding emperors, 
a new feature was given to these spectacles, the Circus being converted 
into a temporary forest, by planting large trees, in which wild animals 
were turned loose, and the people were allowed to enter the wood and 
take what they pleased. In this instance, the game consisted princi- 
pally of beasts of chase; and, on one occasion, one thousand stags, as 
many of the ibex, wild sheep (moufflons from Sardinia?), and other 
grazing animals, besides one thousand wild boars, and as many ostriches, 
were turned loose by the emperor Gordian. 



TITUS. 495 

friends, I have lost a day." 1 More particularly, he treat- 
ed the people on all occasions with so much courtesy, 
that, on his presenting them with a show of gladiators, he 
declared, " He should manage it, not according to his own 
fancy, but that of the spectators," and did accordingly. 
He denied them nothing, and very frankly encouraged 
them to ask what they pleased. Espousing the cause of 
the Thracian party among the gladiators, he frequently 
joined in the popular demonstrations in their favour, but 
without compromising his dignity or doing injustice. To 
omit no opportunity of acquiring popularity, he some- 
times made use himself of the baths he had erected, with- 
out excluding the common people. There happened in 
his reign some dreadful accidents ; an eruption of mount 
Vesuvius, 2 in Campania, and a fire in Rome, which con- 
tinued three days and three nights ; 3 besides a plague, 
such as was scarcely ever known before. Amidst these 
many great disasters, he not only manifested the concern 
which might be expected from a prince, but even the af- 
fection of a father, for his people ; one while comforting 
them by his proclamations, and another while relieving 
them to the utmost of his power. He chose by lot, from 
among the men of consular rank, commissioners for re- 

1 " Diem perdidi." This memorable speech is recorded by several 
other historians, and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles. 

2 a. u. c. 832, a. d. 79. It is hardly necessary to refer to the well- 
known Epistles of Pliny the younger, vi. 16 and 20, giving an account 
of the first eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny, the historian, perish- 
ed. And see hereafter, p. 499. 

'The great fire at Rome happened in the second year of the reign of 
Titus. It consumed a large portion of the city, and among the public 
buildings destroyed were the temples of Serapis and Isis, that of Nep- 
tune, the baths of Agrippa, the Septa, the theatres of Balbus and Pom- 
pey, the buildings and library of Augustus on the Palatine, and the 
temple of Jupiter in the Capitol. 



496 SUETONIUS. 

pairing the losses in Campania. The estates of those 
who had perished by the eruption of Vesuvius, and who 
had left no heirs, he applied to the repair of the ruined 
cities. With regard to the public buildings destroyed by 
fire in the City, he declared that nobody should be a loser 
but himself. Accordingly, he applied all the ornaments 
of his palaces to the decoration of the temples, and pur- 
poses of public utility, and appointed several men of the 
equestrian order to superintend the work. For the relief 
of the people during the plague, he employed, in the way 
of sacrifice and medicine, all means both human and di- 
vine. Amongst the calamities of the times, were inform- 
ers and their agents ; a tribe of miscreants who had 
grown up under the licence of former reigns. These he 
frequently ordered to be scourged or beaten with sticks 
in the forum, and then, after he had obliged them to pass 
through the amphitheatre as a public spectacle, command- 
ed them to be sold for slaves, or else banished them to 
some rocky islands. And to discourage such practices 
for the future, amongst other things, he prohibited actions 
to be successively brought under different laws for the 
same cause, or the state of affairs of deceased persons to 
be inquired into after a certain number of years. 

IX. Having declared that he accepted the office of 
Pontifex Maximus for the purpose of preserving his 
hands undefined, he faithfully adhered to his promise. 
For after that time he was neither directly nor indirectly 
concerned in the death of any person, though he some- 
times was justly irritated. He swore " that he would 
perish himself rather than prove the destruction of any 
man." Two men of patrician rank being convicted of 
aspiring to the empire, he only advised them to desist, 
saying, " that the sovereign power was disposed of by 
fate," and promised them, that if there was any thing else 






TITUS. 497 

they desired of him, he would grant it. He also imme- 
diately sent messengers to the mother of one of them, 
who was at a great distance, and in deep anxiety about 
her son, to assure her of his safety. Nay, he not only in- 
vited them to sup with him, but next day, at a show of 
gladiators, purposely placed them close by him ; and 
handed to them the arms of the combatants for their in- 
spection. It is said likewise, that having had their nativi- 
ties cast, he assured them, " that a great calamity was im- 
pending on both of them, but from another hand, and not 
from his." Though his brother was continually plotting 
against him, almost openly stirring up the armies to rebel- 
lion, and contriving to get away, yet he could not endure 
to put him to death, or to banish him from his presence ; 
nor did he treat him with less respect than before. But 
from his first accession to the empire, he constantly de- 
clared him his partner in it, and that he should be his 
successor ; begging of him sometimes in private, with 
tears in his eyes, "to return the affection he had for him." 
X. Amidst all these favourable circumstances, he was 
cut off by an untimely death, more to the loss of man- 
kind than himself. At the close of the public spectacles, 
he wept bitterly in the presence of the people, and then 
retired into the Sabine country, 1 rather melancholy, be- 
cause a victim had made its escape while he was sacri- 
ficing, and loud thunder had been heard while the atmo- 
sphere was serene. At the first resting-place on the 
road, he was seized with a fever, and being carried for- 
ward in a litter, they say that he drew back the curtains, 

1 See Vespasian cc. i. and xxiv. The love of this emperor and his 
son Titus for the rural retirement of their paternal acres in the Sabine 
country, forms a striking contrast to the vicious attachment of such 
tyrants as Tiberius and Caligula for the luxurious scenes of Baiae, or the 
libidinous orgies of Capri. 
3 2 



498 SUETONIUS. 

and looked up to heaven, complaining heavily, " that his 
life was taken from him, though he had done nothing to 
deserve it ; for there was no action of his that he had oc- 
casion to repent of, but one." What that was, he neither 
disclosed himself, nor is it easy for us to conjecture. 
Some imagine that he alluded to the connection which he 
had formerly had with his brother s wife. But Domitia 
solemnly denied it on oath ; which she would never have 
done, had there been any truth in the report ; nay, she 
would certainly have gloried in it, as she was forward 
enough to boast of all her scandalous intrigues. 

XI. He died in the same villa where his father had died 
before him, upon the Ides of September [the 1 3th of Sep- 
tember] ; two years, two months, and twenty days after 
he had succeeded his father ; and in the one-and-fortieth 
year of his age. 1 As soon as the news of his death was 
published, all people mourned for him, as for the loss of 
some near relative. The senate assembled in haste, be- 
fore they could be summoned by proclamation, and lock- 
ing the doors of their house at first, but afterwards open- 
ing them, they gave him such thanks, and heaped upon 
him such praises, now he was dead, as they never had 
done whilst he was alive and present amongst them. 



Titus Flavius Vespasian, the younger, was the first prince who 
succeeded to the empire by hereditary right ; and having constantly 
acted, after his return from Judaea, as colleague with his father in the 
administration, he seemed to be as well qualified by experience as he 
was by abilities, for conducting the affairs of the empire. But with 
respect to his natural disposition, and moral behaviour, the expecta- 
tions entertained by the public were not equally flattering. He was 
immoderately addicted to luxury ; he had betrayed a strong inclination 

1 a, u. c. 834, a. d. 82. 



TITUS. 



49^ 



to cruelty ; and he lived in the habitual practice of lewdness, no less 
unnatural than intemperate. But, with a degree of virtuous resolution 
unexampled in history, he had no sooner taken into his hands the en- 
tire reins of government, than he renounced every vicious attachment. 
Instead of wallowing in luxury, as before, he became a model of tem- 
perance ; instead of cruelty, he displayed the strongest proofs of hu- 
manity and benevolence ; and in the room of lewdness, he exhibited a 
transition to the most unblemished chastity and virtue. In a word, so 
sudden and great a change was never known in the character of mor- 
tal ; and he had the peculiar glory to receive the appellation of ''the 
darling and delight of mankind." 

Under a prince of such a disposition, the government of the empire 
could not but be conducted with the strictest regard to the public wel- 
fare. The reform, which was begun in the late reign, he prosecuted 
with the most ardent application ; and, had he lived for a longer time, 
it is probable that his authority and example would have produced the 
most beneficial effects upon the manners of the Romans. 

During the reign- of this emperor, in the seventy-ninth year of the 
Christian era, happened the first eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which 
has ever since been celebrated for its volcano. Before this time, Vesu- 
vius is spoken of, by ancient writers, as being covered with orchards 
and vineyards, and of which the middle was dry and barren. The 
eruption was accompanied by an earthquake, which destroyed several 
cities of Campania, particularly Pompeii and Herculaneum ; while the 
lava, pouring down the mountain in torrents, overwhelmed, in various 
directions, the adjacent plains. The burning ashes were covered not 
only over the neighbouring country, but as far as the shores of Egypt, 
Libya, and even Syria. Amongst those to whom this dreadful erup- 
tion proved fatal, was Pliny, the celebrated naturalist, whose curiosity 
to examine the phenomenon led him so far within the verge of danger, 
that he could not afterwards escape. 



TITUS FLAVIUS DOMITIANUS. 



I. Domitian was born upon the ninth of the calends of 
November 1 [24th October], when his father was consul 
elect (being to enter upon his office the month following), 
in the sixth region of the city, at the Pomegranate, 2 in the 
house which he afterwards converted into a temple of the 
Flavian family. He is said to have spent the time of his 
youth in so much want and infamy, that he had not one 
piece of plate belonging to him ; and it is well known, 
that Clodius Pollio, a man of pretorian rank, against 
whom there is a poem of Nero's extant, entitled Luscio, 
kept a note in his hand-writing, which he sometimes pro- 
duced, in which Domitian made an assignment with him 
for bad purposes. ***** 

* ******* 

In the war with Vitellius, he fled into the capital with his 
uncle Sabinus, and a part of the troops they had in the 
city. 3 But the enemy breaking in, and the temple being 
set on fire, he hid himself all night with the sacristan ; 
and next morning, assuming the disguise of a worshipper 
of Isis, and mixing with the priests of that idle supersti- 
tion, he got over the Tiber, 4 with only one attendant, to 

1 a. u. c, 804. 

2 A street, in the sixth region of Rome, so called, probably, from a 
remarkable specimen of this beautiful shrub which had made free growth 
on the spot. 

3 Vitellius, c. xv. 

* Tacitus (Hist, iii.) differs from Suetonius, saying that Domitian took 
500 




'HE EMPEROR 10OMITIAH 



DEBBIE 8c CO. 



DOMITIAN. 501 

the house of a woman who was the mother of one of his 
school-fellows, and lurked there so close, that, though the 
enemy, who were at his heels, searched very strictly after 
him, they could not discover him. At last, after the success 
of his parry, appearing in public, and being unanimously 
saluted by the title of Caesar, he assumed the office of 
praetor of the City, with consular authority, but in fact 
had nothing but the name ; for the jurisdiction he trans- 
ferred to his next colleague. He used, however his abso- 
lute power so licentiously, that even then he plainly dis- 
covered what sort of prince he was likely to prove. Not 
to go into details, after he had made free with the wives 
of many men of distinction, he took Domitia Longina 
from her husband, ^Elias Lamia, and married her ; and in 
one day disposed of above twenty offices in the city and 
provinces ; upon which Vespasian said several times, " he 
wondered he did not send him a successor too." 

II. He likewise designed an expedition into Gaul and 
Germany, 1 without the least necessity for it, and contrary 
to the advice of all his father's friends ; and this he did 
only with the view of equalling his brother in military 
achievements and glory. But for this he was severely 
reprimanded, and that he might the more effectually be 
reminded of his age and position, was made to live with 
his father, and his litter had to follow his father's and 
brother's carriage, as often as they went abroad ; but he 
attended them in their triumph for the conquest of Judaea, 2 
mounted on a white horse. Of the six consulships which 
he held, only one was ordinary ; and that he obtained by 

refuge with a client of his father's near the Velabrum. Perhaps he found 
it more safe afterwards to cross the Tiber. 

1 One of Domitian's coins bears on the reverse a captive female and 
soldier, with germania devicta. 

2 Vespasian, c. xii ; Titus, c. vi. 



5 o2 SUETONIUS. 

the cession and interest of his brother. He greatly af- 
fected a modest behaviour, and, above all, a taste for 
poetry ; insomuch, that he rehearsed his performances in 
public, though it was an art he had formerly little culti- 
vated, and which he afterwards despised and abandoned. 
Devoted, however, as he was at this time to poetical pur- 
suits, yet when Vologesus, king of the Parthians, desired 
succours against the Alani, with one of Vespasian's sons 
to command them, he laboured hard to procure for him- 
self that appointment. But the scheme proving abortive, 
he endeavoured by presents and promises to engage 
other kings of the East to make a similar request After 
his father's death, he was for some time in doubt, whether 
he should not offer the soldiers a donative double to that 
of his brother, and made no scruple of saying frequently, 
" that he had been left his partner in the empire, but that 
his father's will had been fraudulently set aside." From 
that time forward, he was constantly engaged in plots 
against his brother, both publicly and privately ; until, 
falling dangerously ill, he ordered all his attendants to 
leave him, under pretence of his being dead, before he 
really was so ; and, at his decease, paid him no other 
honour than that of enrolling him amongst the gods ; and 
he often, both in speeches and edicts, carped at his mem- 
ory by sneers and insinuations. 

III. In the beginning of his reign, he used to spend 
daily an hour by himself in private, during which time he 
did nothing else but catch flies, and stick them through 
the body with a sharp pin. When some one therefore 
inquired, " whether any one was with the emperor," it 
was significantly answered by Vibius Crispus, " Not so 
much as a fly." Soon after his advancement, his wife 
Domitia, by whom he had a son in his second consulship, 
and whom the year following he complimented with the 



DOMITIAN. 503 

title of Augusta, being desperately in love with Paris, the 
actor, he put her away; but within a short time after- 
wards, being unable to bear the separation, he took her 
again, under pretence of complying with the people's 
importunity. During some time, there was in his admin- 
istration a strange mixture of virtue and vice, until at 
last his virtues themselves degenerated into vices ; being, 
as we may reasonably conjecture concerning his char- 
acter, inclined to avarice through want, and to cruelty 
through fear. 

IV. He frequently entertained the people with most 
magnificent and costly shows, not only in the amphithea- 
tre, but the circus ; where, besides the usual races with 
chariots drawn by two or four horses a-breast, he exhib- 
ited the representation of an engagement between both 
horse and foot, and a sea-fight in the amphitheatre. The 
people were also entertained with the chase of wild beasts 
and the combat of gladiators, even in the night-time, by 
torch-light. Nor did men only fight in these spectacles, 
but women also. He constantly attended at the games 
given by the quaestors, which had been disused for some 
time, but were revived by him ; and upon those occasions, 
always gave the people the liberty of demanding two pair 
of gladiators out of his own school, who appeared last in 
court uniforms. Whenever he attended the shows of 
gladiators, there stood at his feet a little boy dressed in 
scarlet, with a prodigiously small head, with whom he 
used to talk very much, and sometimes seriously. We 
are assured, that he was overheard asking him, " if he 
knew for what reason he had in the late appointment, 
made Metius Rufus governor of Egypt?" He presented 
the people with naval fights, performed by fleets almost 
as numerous as those usually employed in real engage- 
ments ; making a vast lake near the Tiber, 1 and building 

1 Such excavations had been made by Julius and by Augustus [Aug. 



504 SUETONIUS. 

seats round it. And he witnessed them himself during a 
very heavy rain. He likewise celebrated the Secular 
games, 1 reckoning not from the year in which they had 
been exhibited by Claudius, but from the time of Au- 
gustus's celebration of them. In these, upon the day 
of the Circensian sports, in order to have a hundred 
races performed, he reduced each course from seven 
rounds to five. He likewise instituted, in honour of Ju- 
piter Capitolinus, a solemn contest in music to be per- 
formed every five years ; besides horse-racing and gym- 
nastic exercises, with more prizes than are at present 
allowed. There was also a public performance in elocu- 
tion, both Greek and Latin ; and besides the musicians 
who sung to the harp, there were others who played con- 
certed pieces or solos, without vocal accompaniment. 
Young girls also ran races in the Stadium, at which he 
presided in his sandals, dressed in a purple robe, made 
after the Grecian fashion, and wearing upon his head a 
golden crown bearing the effigies of Jupiter, Juno, and 
Minerva ; with the flamen of Jupiter, and the college of 
priests sitting by his side in the same dress ; excepting 
only that their crowns had also his own image on them. 
He celebrated also upon the Alban mount every year the 
festival of Minerva, for whom he had appointed a college 
of priests, out of which were chosen by lot persons to pre- 
side as governors over the college ; who were obliged to 
entertain the people with extraordinary chases of wild- 
beasts, and stage-plays, besides contests for prizes in ora- 
tory and poetry. He thrice bestowed upon the people a 

xliii.], and the seats for the spectators fitted up with timber in a rude 
way. That was on the other side of the Tiber. The Naumachia of 
Domitian occupied the site of the present Piazza d'Espagna, and was 
larger and more ornamented. 

1 a. u. c. 841. See Augustus, c. xxxi. 



DOMITIAN. 505 

largess of three hundred sesterces each man ; and, at a 
public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. At the 
festival of the Seven Hills, 1 he. distributed large hampers 
of provisions to the senatorian and equestrian orders, and 
small baskets to the common people, and encouraged them 
to eat by setting them the example. The day after, he 
scattered among the people a variety of cakes and other 
delicacies to be scrambled for ; and on the greater part of 
them falling amidst the seats of the crowd, he ordered five 
hundred tickets to be thrown into each range of benches 
belonging to the senatorian and equestrian orders. 

V. He rebuilt many noble edifices which had been de- 
stroyed by fire, and amongst them the Capitol, which had 
been burnt down a second time ; 2 but all the inscriptions 
were in his own name, without the least mention of the 
original founders. He likewise erected a new temple in 
the Capitol to Jupiter Custos, and a forum, 3 which is now 
called Nerva's, as also the temple of the Flavian family, 4 



1 This feast was held in December. Plutarch informs us that it was 
instituted in commemoration of the seventh hill being included in the 
city bounds. 

2 The Capitol had been burnt, for the third time, in the great fire 
mentioned Titus, c. viii. The first fire happened in the Marian war, 
after which it was rebuilt by Pompey, the second in the reign of Vitel- 
lius. 

3 This forum, commenced by Domitian and completed by Nerva, ad- 
joined the Roman forum and that of Augustus, mentioned in c. xxix. 
of his life. From its communicating with the two others, it was called 
Transitorium. Part of the wall which bounded it still remains, of a 
great height, and 144 paces long. It is composed of square masses of 
freestone, very large, and without any cement ; and it is not carried in 
a straight line, but makes three or four angles, as if some buildings had 
interfered with its direction. 

4 The residence of the Flavian family was converted into a temple. 
See c. i. of the present book. 



506 SUETONIUS. 

a stadium, 1 an odeum, 2 and a naumachia; 3 out of the 
stone dug from which, the sides of the Circus Maximus, 
which had been burnt down, were rebuilt. 

VI. He undertook several expeditions, some from choice, 
and some from necessity. That against the Catti 4 was 
unprovoked, but that against the Sarmatians was neces- 
sary ; an entire legion, with its commander, having been 
cut off by them. He sent two expeditions against the 
Dacians ; the first upon the defeat of Oppius Sabinus, a 
man of consular rank ; and the other, upon that of Cor- 
nelius Fuscus, prefect of the pretorian cohorts, to whom 
he had entrusted the conduct of that war. After several 
battles with the Catti and Daci, he celebrated a double 
triumph. But for his successes against the Sarmatians, 
he only bore in procession the laurel crown to Jupiter 
Capitolinus. The civil war, begun by Lucius Antonius, 
governor of Upper Germany, he quelled, without being 
obliged to be personally present at it, with remarkable 
good fortune. For, at the very moment of joining battle, 
the Rhine suddenly thawing, the troops of the barbarians 
which were ready to join L. Antonius, were prevented 
from crossing the river. Of this victory he had notice by 
some presages, before the messengers who brought the 
news of it arrived. For upon the very day the battle was 
fought, a splendid eagle spread his wings round his statue 
at Rome, making most joyful cries. And shortly after, a 
rumour became common, that Antonius was slain ; nay, 
many positively affirmed, that they saw his head brought 
to the city. 

1 The Stadium was in the shape of a circus, and used for races both 
of men and horses. 

2 The Odeum was a building intended for musical performances. 
There were four of them at Rome. 

8 See before, c. iv. 4 See Vespasian, c. xiv. 



DOMITIAN. 507 

VII. He made many innovations in common practices. 
He abolished the Sportula, 1 and revived the old practice 
of regular suppers. To the four former parties in the 
Circensian games, he added two new, who wore gold and 
scarlet. He prohibited the players from acting in the 
theatre, but permitted them the practice of their art in 
private houses. He forbad the castration of males ; and 
reduced the price of the eunuchs who were still left in the 
hands of the dealers in slaves. On the occasion of a 
great abundance of wine, accompanied by a scarcity of 
corn, supposing that the tillage of the ground was neg- 
lected for the sake of attending too much to the cultiva- 
tion of vineyards, he published a proclamation forbidding 
the planting of any new vines in Italy, and ordered the 
vines in the provinces to be cut down, nowhere permit- 
ting more than one half of them to remain. 2 But he did 
not persist in the execution of this project. Some of the 
greatest offices he conferred upon his freedmen and sol- 
diers. He forbad two legions to be quartered in the same 
camp, and more than a thousand sesterces to be deposit- 
ed by any soldier with the standards ; because it was 
thought that Lucius Antonius had been encouraged in his 
late project by the large sum deposited in the military 
chest by the two legions which he had in the same winter- 
quarters. He made an addition to the soldiers' pay, of 
three gold pieces a year. 

VIII. In the administration of justice he was diligent 
and assiduous ; and frequently sat in the forum out of 
course, to cancel the judgments of the court of The One 
Hundred, which had been procured through favour, or 
interest. He occasionally cautioned the judges of the 
court of recovery to beware of being too ready to admit 

1 See Nero, c. xvi. 
2 This absurd edict was speedily revoked. See afterwards c. xiv. 



508 SUETONIUS. 

claims for freedom brought before them. He set a mark 
of infamy upon judges who were convicted of taking 
bribes, as well as upon their assessors. He likewise in- 
stigated the tribunes of the people to prosecute a corrupt 
aedile for extortion, and to desire the senate to appoint 
judges for his trial. He likewise took such effectual care 
in punishing magistrates of the city, and governors of 
provinces, guilty of malversation, that they never were at 
any time more moderate or more just. Most of these, 
since his reign, we have seen prosecuted for crimes of 
various kinds. Having taken upon himself the reforma- 
tion of the public manners, he restrained the licence of 
the populace in sitting promiscuously with the knights in 
the theatre. Scandalous libels, published to defame per- 
sons of rank, of either sex, he suppressed, and inflicted 
upon their authors a mark of infamy. He expelled a man 
of quaestorian rank from the senate, for practicing mim- 
icry and dancing. He debarred infamous women the use 
of litters ; as also the right of receiving legacies, or in- 
heriting estates. He struck out of the list of judges a 
Roman knight for taking again his wife whom he had di- 
vorced and prosecuted for adultery. He condemned sev- 
eral men of the senatorian and equestrian orders, upon 
the Scantinian law. 1 The lewdness of the Vestal Virgins, 
which had been overlooked by his father and brother, he 
punished severely, but in different ways ; viz. offences 
committed before his reign, with death, and those since its 
commencement, according to ancient custom. For to the 
two sisters called Ocellatse, he gave liberty to choose the 
mode of death which they preferred, and banished their 

1 This was an ancient law levelled against adultery and other pollu- 
tions, named from its author Caius Scatinius, a tribune of the people. 
There was a Julian law, with the same object. See Augustus, c. 
xxxiv. 



DOMITIAN. 509 

paramours. But Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, 
who had formerly been acquitted upon a charge of incon- 
tinence, being a long time after again prosecuted and con- 
demned, he ordered to be buried alive ; and her gallants 
to be whipped to death with rods in the Comitium ; ex- 
cepting only a man of praetorian rank, to whom, because 
he confessed the fact, while the case was dubious, and it 
was not established against him, though the witnesses had 
been put to the torture, he granted the favour of banish- 
ment. And to preserve pure and undefined the reverence 
due to the gods, he ordered the soldiers to demolish a 
tomb, which one of his freedmen had erected for his son 
out of the stones designed for the temple of Jupiter Cap- 
itolinus, and to sink in the sea the bones and relics buried 
in it. 

IX. Upon his first succeeding to power, he felt such an 
abhorrence for the shedding of blood, that, before bis fa- 
ther's arrival in Rome, calling to mind the verse of Virgil, 

Impia quam caesis gens est epulata juvencis, 1 

Ere impious man, restrain'd from blood in vain, 
Began to feast on flesh of bullocks slain, — 

he designed to have published a proclamation, " to forbid 
the sacrifice of oxen." Before his accession to the impe- 
rial authority, and during some time afterwards, he 
scarcely ever gave the least grounds for being suspected 
of covetousness or avarice ; but, on the contrary, he often 
afforded proofs, not only of his justice, but his liberality. 
To all about him he was generous even to profusion, and 
recommended nothing more earnestly to them than to 
avoid doing anything mean. He would not accept the 
property left him by those who had children. He also set 

^eor. xi. 537. 



5io SUETONIUS. 

aside a legacy bequeathed by the will of Ruscus Caepio, 
who had ordered "his heir to make a present yearly to 
each of the senators upon their first assembling." He 
exonerated all those who had been under prosecution 
from the treasury for above five years before ; and would 
not suffer suits to be renewed, unless it was done within 
a year, and on condition, that the prosecutor should be 
banished, if he could not make good his cause. The sec- 
retaries of the quaestors having engaged in trade, accord- 
ing to custom, but contrary to the Clodian law, 1 he par- 
doned them for what was past. Such portions of land as 
had been left when it was divided amongst the veteran 
soldiers, he granted to the ancient possessors, as belong- 
ing to them by prescription. He put a stop to false 
prosecutions in the exchequer, by severely punishing the 
prosecutors ; and this saying of his was much taken 
notice of: "that a prince who does not punish informers, 
encourages them." 

X. But he did not long persevere in this course of 
clemency and justice, although he sooner fell into cruelty 
than into avarice. He put to death a scholar of Paris, 
the pantomimic, 2 though a minor, and then sick, only be- 
cause, both in person and the practice c t his art, he re- 
sembled his master ; as he did likewise Hermogenes of 
Tarsus for some oblique reflections in his History ; cruci- 
fying, besides, the scribes who had copied the work. One 
who was master of a band of gladiators, happening to 
say, " that a Thrax was a match for a Marmillo, 3 but not 
so for the exhibitor of the games," he ordered him to be 
dragged from the benches into the arena, and exposed to 

1 See Livy, xxi. 63, and Cicero against Verres, v. 18. 
2 See Vespasian, c. iii. 
3 Cant names for gladiators. 



DOMITIAN. 51,1 

the dogs, with this label upon him, " A Parmularian 1 guilty 
of talking impiously." He put to death many senators, 
and amongst them several men of consular rank. In this 
number were, Civica Cerealis, when he was proconsul in 
Africa, Salvidienus Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio in exile, 
under the pretence of their planning to revolt against 
him. The rest he punished upon very trivial occasions ; 
as ^Elius Lamia for some jocular expressions, which were 
of old date, and perfectly harmless ; because, upon his 
commending his voice after he had taken his wife from 
him, 2 he replied, " Alas ! I hold my tongue." And when 
Titus advised him to take another wife, he answered him 
thus: "What! have you a mind to marry?" Salvius 
Cocceianus was condemned to death for keeping the 
birth-day of his uncle Otho, the emperor : Metius Pom- 
posianus, because he was commonly reported to have an 
imperial nativity, 3 and to carry about with him a map of 
the world upon vellum, with the speeches of kings and 
generals extracted out of Titus Livius ; and for giving 
his slaves the names of Mago and Annibal ; Sallustius 
Lucullus, lieutenant in Britain, for suffering some lances 
of a new invention to be called " Lucullean ;" and Junius 
Rusticus, for publishing a treatise in praise of Paetus 
Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and calling them both 
"most upright men." Upon this occasion, he likewise 
banished all the philosophers from the city and Italy. He 
put to death the younger Helvidius, for writing a farce, in 
which, under the character of Paris and CEnone, he 
reflected upon his having divorced his wife ; and also 
Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins, because, upon his 
being chosen at the consular election to that office, the 
public crier had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the 

1 The faction which favoured the " Thrax " party. 

2 Domitian, c. i. 8 See Vespasian, c. xiv. 



512 SUETONIUS. 

people not consul, but emperor. Becoming still more 
savage after his success in the civil war, he employed the 
utmost industry to discover those of the adverse party 
who absconded: many of them he racked with a new- 
invented torture, inserting fire through their private parts ; 
and from some he cut off their hands. It is certain, that 
only two of any note were pardoned, a tribune who wore 
the narrow stripe, and a centurion ; who, to clear them- 
selves from the charge of being concerned in any rebel- 
lious project, proved themselves to have been incapable 
of exercising any influence either over the general or the 
soldiers. 

XI. His cruelties were not only excessive, but subtle 
and unexpected. The day before he crucified a collector 
of his rents, he sent for him into his bed-chamber, made 
him sit down upon the bed by him, and sent him away 
well pleased, and, so far as could be inferred from his 
treatment, in a state of perfect security ; having vouch- 
safed him the favour of a plate of meat from his own 
table. When he was on the point of condemning to death 
Aretinus Clemens, a man of consular rank, and one of his 
friends and emissaries, he retained him about his person 
in the same or greater favour than ever ; until at last, as 
they were riding together in the same litter, upon seeing 
the man who had informed against him, he said, " Are you 
willing that we should hear this base slave to morrow ?" 
Contemptuously abusing the patience of men, he never 
pronounced a severe sentence without prefacing it with 
words which gave hopes of mercy ; so that, at last, there 
was not a more certain token of a fatal conclusion, than 
a mild commencement. He brought before the senate 
some persons accused of treason, declaring, " that he 
should prove that day how dear he was to the senate ;" 
and so influenced them, that they condemned the accused 



DOMITIAN. 



5*3 



to be punished according to the ancient usage. 1 Then, as 
if alarmed at the extreme severity of their punishment, 
to lessen the odiousness of the proceeding, he interposed 
in these words ; for it is not foreign to the purpose to 
give them precisely as they were delivered : " Permit, me, 
'Conscript Fathers, so far to prevail upon your affection 
for me, however extraordinary the request may seem, as 
to grant the condemned criminals the favour of dying in 
the manner they choose. For by so doing, ye will spare 
your own eyes, and the world will understand that I 
interceded with the senate on their behalf." 

XII. Having exhausted the exchequer by the expense 
of his buildings and public spectacles, with the augmen- 
tation of pay lately granted to the troops, he made an 
attempt at the reduction of the army, in order to lessen 
the military charges. But reflecting, that he should, by 
this measure, expose himself to the insults of the barba- 
rians, while it would not suffice to extricate him from his 
embarrassments, he had recourse to plundering his sub- 
jects by every mode of exaction. The estates of the liv- 
ing and the dead were sequestered upon any accusation, 
by whomsoever preferred. The unsupported allegation 
of any one person, relative to a word or action construed 
to affect the dignity of the emperor, was sufficient. In- 
heritances, to which he had not the slightest pretension, 
were confiscated, if there was found so much as one per- 
son to say, he had heard from the deceased when living, 
" that he had made the emperor his heir." Besides the 
exactions from others, the poll-tax on the Jews was levied 
with extreme rigour, both on those who lived after the 
manner of Jews in the city, without publicly professing 
themselves to be such, 2 and on those who, by concealing 



1 This cruel punishment is described in Nero, c. xlix. 

2 Gentiles who were proselytes to the Jewish religion ; or, perhaps, 

33 



■ 



5 i4 SUETONIUS. 

their origin, avoided paying the tribute imposed upon that 
people. I remember, when I was a youth, to have been 
present, 1 when an old man, ninety years of age, had his 
person exposed to view in a very crowded court, in order 
that, on inspection, the procurator might satisfy himself 
whether he was circumcised. 2 

From his earliest years Domitian was any thing but 
courteous, of a forward, assuming disposition, and ex- 
travagant both in his words and actions. When Caenis, 
his father's concubine, upon her return from Istria, offered 
him a kiss, as she had been used to do, he presented her 
his hand to kiss. Being indignant, that his brother's son- 
in-law should be waited on by servants dressed in white, 3 
he exclaimed, 

obx ayddbv TtoXoxoipavirj. 41 

Too many princes are not good. 

XIII. After he became emperor, he had the assurance 
to boast in the senate, " that he had bestowed the empire 
on his father and brother, and they had restored it to 
him." And upon taking his wife again, after the divorce, 
he declared by proclamation, " that he had recalled her to 
his pulvinar." 5 He \ras not a little pleased too, at hear- 
ing the acclamations of the people in the amphitheatre on 
a day of festival, " All happiness to our lord and lady." 

members of the Christian sect, who were confounded with them. See 
the note to Tiberius, c. xxxvi. The tax levied on the Jews was two 
drachmas per head. It was general throughout the empire. 

1 We have had Suetonius' s reminiscences, derived through his grand- 
father and father successively, Caligula, c. xix. ; Otho, c. x. We 
now come to his own, commencing from an early age. 

2 This is what Martial calls, " Mentula tributis damnata." 

3 The imperial liveries were white and gold. 

4 See Caligula, c. xxi., where the rest of the line is quoted; efc 

XOipaVOS £(TT(0. 

5 An assumption of divinity, as the pulvinar was the consecrated bed, 
on which the images of the gods reposed. . 



DOMITIAN. 515 

But when, during the celebration of the Capitoline trial 
of skill, the whole concourse of people entreated him 
with one voice to restore Palfurius Sura to his place in 
the senate, from which he had been long before expelled 
— he having then carried away the prize of eloquence 
from all the orators who had contended for it, — he did 
not vouchsafe to give them any answer, but only com- 
manded silence to be proclaimed by the voice of the 
crier. With equal arrogance, when he dictated the form 
of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began it 
thus : " Our lord and god commands so and so ;" whence 
it became a rule that no one should style himself other- 
wise either in writing or speaking. He suffered no stat- 
ues to be erected for him in the Capitol, unless they were 
of gold and silver, and of a certain weight. He erected 
so many magnificent gates and arches, surmounted by 
representations of chariots drawn by four horses, and 
other triumphal ornaments, in different quarters of the 
city, that a wag inscribed on one of the arches the Greek 
word 'Apxsi, " It is enough." 1 He filled the office of consul 
seventeen times, which no one had ever done before him, 
and for the seven middle occasions in successive years ; 
but in scarcely any of them had he more than the title ; 
for he never continued in office beyond the calends of 
May [the 1st May], and for the most part only till the 
ides of January [13th January]. After his two triumphs, 
when he assumed the cognomen of Germanicus, he called 
the months of September and October, Germanicus and 
Domitian, after his own names, because he commenced 
his reign in the one, and was born in the other. 

XIV. Becoming by these means universally feared and 
odious, he was at last taken off by a conspiracy of his 

1 The pun turns on the similar sound of the Greek word for "enough," 
and the Latin word for "an arch." 



5 i6 SUETONIUS. 

friends and favourite freedmen, in concert with his wife. 1 
He had long entertained a suspicion of the year and day 
when he should die, and even of the very hour and man- 
ner of his death: all which he had learned from the Chal- 
daeans, when he was a very young man. His father once 
at supper laughed at him for refusing to eat some mush- 
rooms, saying, that if he knew his fate, he would rather 
be afraid of the sword. Being, therefore, in perpetual 
apprehension and anxiety, he was keenly alive to the 
slightest suspicions, insomuch that he is thought to have 
withdrawn the edict ordering the destruction of the vines, 
chiefly because the copies of it which were dispersed had 
the following lines written upon them : 

Kijv (is <pdyr)S iiA p y i%av o/ia>q Irt xap7to<popij(ju) f 
*0<r<rov internet <rat Kaiaapt ftuu/ieva). 2 

Gnaw thou my root, yet shall my juice suffice 
To pour on Caesar's head in sacrifice. 

It was from the same principle of fear, that he refused a 
new honour, devised and offered him by the senate, 
though he was greedy of all such compliments. It was 
this: "that as often as he held the consulship, Roman 
knights, chosen by lot, should walk before him, clad in the 
Trabea, with lances in their hands, amongst his lictors and 
apparitors." As the time of the danger which he appre- 
hended drew near, he became daily more and more dis- 
turbed in mind ; insomuch that he lined the walls of the 
porticos in which he used to walk, with the stone called 

1 Domitia, who had been repudiated for an intrigue with Paris, the 
actor, and afterwards taken back. 

2 The lines, with a slight accommodation, are borrowed from the poet 
Evenus, Anthol. i. vi. i., who applies them to a goat, the great enemy 
of vineyards. Ovid, Fasti, i. 357, thus paraphrases them: 

Rode caper vitem, tamen hinc, cum staris ad aram, 
In tua quod spargi cornua possit erit. 






DOMITIAN. 517 

Phengites, 1 by the reflection of which he could see every 
object behind him. He seldom gave an audience to per- 
sons in custody, unless in private, being alone, and he 
himself holding their chains in his hand. To convince his 
domestics that the life of a master was not to be attempt- 
ed upon any pretext, however plausible, he condemned to 
death Epaphroditus his secretary, because it was be- 
lieved that he had assisted Nero, in his extremity, to kill 
himself. 

XV. His last victim was Flavius Clemens, 2 his cousin- 
german, a man below contempt for his want of energy, 
whose sons, then of very tender age, he had avowedly 
destined for his successors, and, discarding their former 
names, had ordered one to be called Vespasian, and the 
other Domitian. Nevertheless, he suddenly put him to 
death upon some very slight suspicion, 3 almost before he 
was well out of his consulship. By this violent act he 
very much hastened his own destruction. During eight 
months together there was so much lightning at Rome, 
and such accounts of the phenomenon were brought 
from other parts, that at last he cried out, " Let him now 
strike whom he will." The Capitol was struck by light- 
ning, as well as the temple of the Flavian family, with the 
Palatine-house, and his own bed-chamber. The tablet 
also, inscribed upon the base of his triumphal statue was 
carried away by the violence of the storm, and fell upon 
a neighbouring monument. The tree which just before 
the advancement of Vespasian had been prostrated, and 
rose again, 4 suddenly fell to the ground. The goddess 

1 Pliny describes this stone as being brought from Cappadocia, and 
says that it was as hard as marble, white and translucent, cxxiv. c. 22. 
2 See note to c. xvii. 
3 The guilt imputed to them was atheism and Jewish (Christian ?) 
manners. Dion lxvii. 11 12. 

4 See Vespasian c. v. 



518 SUETONIUS. 

Fortune of Praeneste, to whom it was his custom on new 
year's day to commend the empire for the ensuing year, 
and who had always given him a favourable reply, at last 
returned him a melancholy answer, not without mention 
of blood. He dreamt that Minerva, whom he worshipped 
even to a superstitious excess, was withdrawing from her 
sanctuary, declaring she could protect him no longer, be- 
cause she was disarmed by Jupiter. Nothing, however, so 
much affected him as an answer given by Ascletario, the 
astrologer, and his subsequent fate. This person had 
been informed against, and did not deny his having pre- 
dicted some future events, of which, from the principles 
of his art, he confessed he had a foreknowledge. Domi- 
tian asked him, what end he thought he should come to 
himself? To which replying, "I shall in a short time be 
torn to pieces by dogs," he ordered him immediately to 
be slain, and, in order to demonstrate the vanity of his 
art, to be carefully buried. But during the preparations 
for executing this order, it happened that the funeral-pile 
was blown down by a sudden storm, and the body, half- 
burnt, was torn to pieces by dogs ; which being observed 
by Latinus, the comic actor, as he chanced to pass that 
way, he told it, amongst the other news of the day, to the 
emperor at supper. 

XVI. The day before his death, he ordered some dates, 1 
served up at the table, to be kept till the next day, ad- 
ding, " If I have the luck to use them." And turning to 
those who were nearest him, he said, "To-morrow the 
moon in Aquarius will be bloody instead of watery, and 
an event will happen, which will be much talked of all the 

1 Columella (R. R. x.i. 2.) enumerates dates among the foreign fruits 
cultivated in Italy, cherries, dates, apricots, and almonds ; and Pliny, 
xv. 14, informs us that Sextus Papinius was the first who introduced the 
date tree, having brought it from Africa, in the latter days of Augustus. 



DOMITIAN. 519 

world over." About midnight, he was so terrified that he 
leaped out of bed. That morning he tried and passed sen- 
tence on a soothsayer sent from Germany, who being con- 
sulted about the lightning that had lately happened, pre- 
dicted from it a change of government. The blood running 
down his face as he scratched an ulcerous tumour on his 
forehead, he said, " Would this were all that is to befall 
me!" Then, upon his asking the time of the day, instead 
of five o'clock, which was the hour he dreaded, they pur- 
posely told him it was six. Overjoyed at this information, 
as if all danger were now passed, and hastening to the 
bath, Parthenius, his chamberlain, stopped him, by saying 
that there was a person come to wait upon him about a 
matter of great importance, which would admit of no de- 
lay. Upon this, ordering all persons to withdraw, he 
retired into his chamber, and was there slain. 

XVII. Concerning the contrivance and mode of his 
death, the common account is this. The conspirators 
being in some doubt when and where they should attack 
him, whether while he was in the bath, or at supper, Ste- 
phanus, a steward of Domitilla's, 1 then under prosecution 
for defrauding his mistress, offered them his advice and 
assistance ; and wrapping up his left arm, as if it was hurt, 
in wool and bandages for some days, to prevent suspicion, 
at the hour appointed, he secreted a dagger in them. Pre- 
tending then to make a discovery of a conspiracy, and 
being for that reason admitted, he presented to the em- 
peror a memorial, and while he was reading it in great 

1 Some suppose that Domitilla was the wife of Flavius Clemens (c. 
xv.), both of whom were condemned by Domitian for their " impiety," 
by which it is probably meant that they were suspected of favouring 
Christianity. Eusebius makes Flavia Domitilla the niece of Flavius 
Clemens, and says that she was banished to Ponza, for having become 
a Christian. Clemens Romanus, the second bishop of Rome, is said to 
have been of this family. 



520 SUETONIUS. 

astonishment, stabbed him in the groin. But Domitian, 
though wounded, making resistance, Clodianus, one of his 
guards, Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius's, Saturius, 
his principal chamberlain, with some gladiators, fell upon 
him, and stabbed him in seven places. A boy who had the 
charge of the Lares in his bed-chamber, and was then in 
attendance as usual, gave these further particulars : that 
he was ordered by Domitian, upon receiving his first 
wound, to reach him a dagger which lay under his pillow, 
and call in his domestics ; but that he found nothing at 
the head of the bed, excepting the hilt of a poniard, and 
that all the doors were fastened : that the emperor in the 
mean time got hold of Stephanus, and throwing him upon 
the ground, struggled a long time with him ; one while 
endeavouring to wrench the dagger from him, another 
while, though his fingers were miserably mangled, to tear 
out his eyes. He was slain upon the fourteenth of the 
calends of October [18th Sept.], in the forty-fifth year of 
his age, and the fifteenth of his reign. 1 His corpse was 
carried out upon a common bier by the public bearers, 
and buried by his nurse Phyllis, at his suburban villa on 
the Latin Way. But she afterwards privately conveyed 
his remains to the temple of the Flavian family, 2 and min- 
gled them with the ashes of Julia, the daughter of Titus, 
whom she had also nursed. 

XVIII. He was tall in stature, his face modest, and very 
ruddy ; he had large eyes, but was dim-sighted ; naturally 
graceful in his person, particularly in his youth, excepting 
only that his toes were bent somewhat inward, he was at 
last disfigured by baldness, corpulence, and the slender- 
ness of his legs, which were reduced by a long illness. 
He was so sensible how much the modesty of his counte- 
nance recommended him, that he once made this boast to 

1 a. u. c. 849. 2 See c. v. 

1^0 



DOMITIAN. 521 

the senate, " Thus far you have approved both of my dis- 
position and my countenance." His baldness so much 
annoyed him, that he considered it an affront to himself, 
if any other person was reproached with it, either in jest 
or in earnest ; though in a small tract he published, ad- 
dressed to a friend, " concerning the preservation of the 
hair," he uses for their mutual consolation the words fol- 
lowing : 

'Ou/ opdaq dloq xaytb xdkoq rs fxiyaq re ; 

Seest thou my graceful mien, my stately form ? 

" and yet the fate of my hair awaits me ; however, I bear 
with fortitude this loss of my hair while I am still young. 
Remember that nothing is more fascinating than beauty, 
but nothing of shorter duration." 

XIX. He so shrunk from undergoing fatigue, that he 
scarcely ever walked through the city on foot. In his 
expeditions and on a march, he seldom rode on horse- 
back, but was generally carried in a litter. He had no 
inclination for the exercise of arms, but was very expert 
in the use of the bow. Many persons have seen him 
often kill a hundred wild animals, of various kinds, at his 
Alban retreat, and fix his arrows in their heads with such 
dexterity, that he could, in two shots, plant them, like a 
pair of horns, in each. He would sometimes direct his 
arrows against the hand of a boy standing at a distance, 
and expanded as a mark, with such precision, that they 
all passed between the boy's fingers, without hurting him. 

XX. In the beginning of his reign, he gave up the study 
of the liberal sciences, though he took care to restore, at 
a vast expense, the libraries which had been burnt down ; 
collecting manuscripts from all parts, and sending scribes 
to Alexandria, 1 either to copy or correct them. Yet he 

1 The famous library of Alexandria collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus 
had been burnt by accident in the wars. But we find from this passage 

Mi 



522 SUETONIUS. 

never gave himself the trouble of reading history or 
poetry, or of employing his pen even for his private pur- 
poses. He perused nothing but the Commentaries and 
Acts of Tiberius Caesar. His letters, speeches, and edicts, 
were all drawn up for him by others ; though he could 
converse with elegance, and sometimes expressed him- 
self in memorable sentiments, " I could wish," said he 
once, " that I was but as handsome as Metius fancies 
himself to be." And of the head of some one whose 
hair was partly reddish, and partly grey, he said " that it 
was snow sprinkled with mead." 

XXI. "The lot of princes," he remarked, "was very 
miserable, for no one believed them when they discov- 
ered a conspiracy, until they were murdered." When he 
had leisure, he amused himself with dice, even on days 
that were not festivals, and in the morning. He went to 
the bath early, and made a plentiful dinner, insomuch that 
he seldom ate more at supper than a Martian apple, 1 to 
which he added a draught of wine, out of a small flask. 
He gave frequent and splendid entertainments, but they 
were soon over, for he never prolonged them after sun- 
set, and indulged in no revel after. For, till bed-time, he 
did nothing else but walk by himself in private. 

XXII. He was insatiable in his lusts, calling frequent 
commerce with women, as if it was a sort of exercise, 
xXwtmdXyv, bed- wrestling ; and it was reported that he 
swam about in company with the lowest prostitutes. His 

in Suetonius that part of it was saved, or fresh collections had been 
made. Seneca (de Tranquill. c. ix. 7) informs us that forty thousand 
volumes were burnt ; and Gellius states that in his time the number of 
volumes amounted to nearly seventy thousand. 

1 This favourite apple, mentioned by Columella and Pliny, took its 
name from C. Matius, a Roman knight, and friend of Augustus, who 
first introduced it. Pliny tells us that Matius was also the first who 
brought into vogue the practice of clipping groves. 









DOMITIAN. 



523 



brother's daughter 1 was offered him in marriage when 
she was a virgin ; but being at that time enamoured of 
Domitia, he obstinately refused her. Yet not long after- 
wards, when she was given to another, he was ready 
enough to debauch her, and that even while Titus was 
living. But after she had lost both her father and her 
husband, he loved her most passionately, and without dis- 
guise ; insomuch that he was the occasion of her death, by 
obliging her to procure a miscarriage when she was with 
child by him. 

XXIII. The people shewed little concern at his death, 
but the soldiers were roused by it to great indignation, 
and immediately endeavoured to have him ranked among 
the gods. They were also ready to avenge his loss, if 
there had been any to take the lead. However, they soon 
after effected it, by resolutely demanding the punishment 
of all those who had been concerned in his assassination. 
On the other hand, the senate was so overjoyed, that they 
met in all haste, and in a full assembly reviled his memory 
in the most bitter terms ; ordering ladders to be brought 
in, and his shields and images to be pulled down before 
their eyes, and dashed in pieces upon the floor of the sen- 
ate-house ; passing at the same time a decree to obliterate 
his titles every where, and abolish all memory of him. A 
few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol 
uttered these words: "All will be well." Some person 
gave the following interpretation of this prodigy : 

Nuper Tarpeio, quae sedit culmine cornix. 
"Est bene," non potuit dicere; dixit, "Erit." 
Late croaked a raven from Tarpeia's height, 
"All is not yet, but shortly will be, right." 

They say likewise that Domitian dreamed that a golden 
hump grew out of the back of his neck, which he consid- 
1 Julia, the daughter of Titus. 



5 2 4 SUETONIUS. 

ered as a certain sign of happy days for the empire after 
him. Such an auspicious change indeed shortly after- 
wards took place, through the justice and moderation of 
the succeeding emperors. 



If we view Domitian in the different lights in which he is represent- 
ed, during his lifetime and after his decease, his character and conduct 
discover a greater diversity than is commonly observed in the objects 
of historical detail. But as posthumous character is always the most 
just, its decisive verdict affords the surest criterion by which this varie- 
gated emperor must be estimated by impartial posterity. According to 
this rule, it is beyond a doubt that his vices were more predominant 
than his virtues : and when we follow him into his closet, for some 
time after his accession, when he was thirty years of age, the frivolity 
of his daily employment, in the killing of flies, exhibits an instance of 
dissipation, which surpasses all that has been recorded of his imperial 
predecessors. The encouragement, however, which the first Vespasian 
had shown to literature, continued to operate during the present reign ; 
and we behold the first fruits of its auspicious influence in the valuable 
treatise of Quintilian. 

Of the life of this celebrated writer, little is known upon any au- 
thority that has a title to much credit. We learn, however, that he 
was the son of a lawyer in the service of some of the preceding em- 
perors, and was born at Rome, though in what consulship, or under 
what emperor, it is impossible to determine. He married a woman of 
a noble family, by whom he had two sons. The mother died in the 
flower of her age, and the sons, at the distance of some time from each 
other, when their father was advanced in years. The precise time of 
Quintilian's own death is equally inauthenticated with that of his birth; 
nor can we rely upon an author of suspicious veracity, who says that he 
passed the latter part of his life in a state of indigence, which was alle- 
viated by the liberality of his pupil, Pliny the Younger. Quintilian 
opened a school of rhetoric at Rome, where he not only discharged 
that laborious employment with great applause during more than 
twenty years, but pleaded at the bar, and was the first who obtained a 
salary from the state, for executing the office of a public teacher. He 
was also appointed by Domitian preceptor to the two young princes 
who were intended to succeed him on the throne. 



DOMITIAN. 5*5 

After his retirement from the situation of a teacher, Quintilian de- 
voted his attention to the study of literature, and composed a treatise 
on the Causes of the Corruption of Eloquence. At the earnest solici- 
tation of his friends, he was afterwards induced to undertake his Insti- 
tutiones Oratories, the most elaborate system of oratory extant in any 
language. This work is divided into twelve books, in which the author 
treats with great precision of the qualities of a perfect orator ; explain- 
ing not only the fundamental principles cf eloquence, as connected 
with the constitution of the human mind, but pointing out, both by 
argument and observation, the most successful method of exercising 
that admirable art, for the accomplishment of its purpose. So minutely, 
and upon so extensive a plan, has he prosecuted the subject, that he 
delineates the education suitable to a perfect orator, from the stage cf 
infancy in the cradle, to the consummation of rhetorical fame, in the 
pursuits of the bar, or those, in general, of any public assembly. It is 
sufficient to say, that in the execution of this elaborate work, Quin- 
tilian has called to the assistance of his own acute and comprehensive 
understanding, the profound penetration of Aristotle, the exquisite 
graces of Cicero; all the stores of observation, experience, and prac- 
tice ; and in a word, the whole accumulated exertions of ancient genius 
on the subject of oratory. 

It may justly be regarded as an extraordinary circumstance in the 
progress of scientific improvement, that the endowments of a perfect 
orator were never fully exhibited to the world, until it had become 
■dangerous to exercise them for the important purposes for which they 
were originally cultivated. And it is no less remarkable, that, under 
all the violence and caprice of imperial despotism which the Romans 
had now experienced, their sensibility to the enjoyment of poetical 
compositions remained still unabated ; as if it served to console the 
nation for the irretrievable loss of public liberty. From this source of 
entertainment, they reaped more pleasure during the present reign, 
than they had done since the time of Augustus. The poets of this 
period were Juvenal, Statius, and Martial. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



AciLlUS, C, his heroic conduct, 51. 

Acte, a concubine of Nero, 372. 

Actium, battle of, 86. 

iEsculapius, an island in the Tiber, 323 and 
note. 

Agrippa, M., his naval victory, 84; pre- 
sented with a banner, 94. 

, grandson of Augustus, 131 ; his 

character, 132 ; adopted by Augustus, 189 ; 
banished, 179; murdered, 194. 

Agrippina, daughter of M. Agrippa and 
Julia, 246 ; marries Germanicus, 246 ; ban- 
ished by Tiberius, 215 ; birth of Caligula, 
246. 

-, daughter of Germanicus 327; 

marries Domitius .Enobarbus, by whom 
she is the mother of Nero, 352. 403 ; mar- 
ries Claudius, 327 ; suspected of poisoning 
him, 340; her character, 403. 

Albula, the warm springs at, 148. 

Alexander the Great, J. Caesar's model, 6 ; 
his sarcophagus opened for Augustus, 87. 

Alexandria, Museum at, 340; library at, 
521, note ; the key of Egypt, 468 and 
note ; Vespasian's miracles there, 469 and 
note. 

Amphitheatres ; of Statilius Taurus, 256 and 
note ; the Castrensis, 259, note ; the Colos- 
seum, 473 and note. 

Ancilia, the, 435 and note. 

Antony, Mark, at Caesar's funeral, 65 ; tri- 
umvir with Octavius and Lepidus, 79 ; 
opposes Octavius, 80; defeated by him, 
81 ; their new alliance, 81 ; dissolved, 85 ; 
defeat at Actium, 86; flies to Cleopatra, 
86 ; kills himself, 86. 

Anticyra, island of, 268 and note. 

Antium, the Apollo Belvidere found there, 
205, note ; preferred by Caligula, 248 ; col- 
ony settled at, 355 and note. 

Antonius, Lucius, brother of Mark, war with, 
79 ; forced to surrender, 82. 

, Musa, Augustus's physician, 129 

Antonia, grandmother of Caligula, 262, 268. 

, the younger, mother of Claudius, 

298. 

Apelles, the tragedian, 271. 

Apollonius of Rhodes, 4. 

Apple, the Matian, 522. 

Apomus, fountain of, 188 and note. 

Apotheosis of J, Caesar, 1, note ; and 67. 



Aqueduct of the Anio, 259 and note. 
Arch of Claudius, 306 ; of Titus, 490 note. 
Aries, a Roman colony, 178. 
Artabanus, King, his letter to Tiberius, 225. 
Asinius Pollio, the orator, 308, 347. 

Gallus, historian, 308, 338, 347. 



Augur (or Haruspex, or Auspex), 432, note. 

August, name of the month Sextilis changed 
to, 104 

Augustus Caesar, his descent, 73-76; 
birth, 76 ; infancy and youth, yj, 78 ; civil 
wars, 79 ; battle of Philippi, 81 ; takes Pe- 
rugia, 83; naval war with Pompey, 84; 
battle of Actium, 86 ; forces Antony to kill 
himself, 86 ; and Cleopatra, 86 ; quells 
several insurrections, 88 ; foreign wars, 
89 ; triumphs, 91 ; conduct as a general, 
92, 93 ; in civil affairs, 95-99 ; in im- 
proving the city, 99-103 ; in religious mat- 
ters, 103-105 ; in administering justice, 105 
-108; purifies the senate, 108-110; scru- 
tiny of the knights, 112; his munificence, 
114; public spectacles, 116-120; colonies, 
121 ; the provinces, 121 ; distribution of 
the army, 122 ; his clemency and modera- 
tion, 123, 128; honors paid him, 128-130; 
his wives and family, 130-134 ; friendships. 
134-136 ; aspersions on his character, 136 
-140 ; his domestic life, 140-145 ; person 
and health, 145-148 ; literary pursuits, 149 
-153 ; regard for religion and omens, 153- 
156 ; omens attending his birth and career, 
156 ; his last illness and death, 162-164 ; 
his funeral and will, 165-168 ; remarks on 
his life and times, 169-173. 

Aulus Plautius commands in Britain, 314, 
note, 462 ; his ovation, 323. 

Baiae, Julian harbour formed at, 84 ; fre- 
quented by Augustus, 141, note. 

Basilicas, the, 9 and note. 

Basilides, an Egyptian priest, 466, note ; ap- 
pears to Vespasian, 468 and note. 

Baths of Nero, 358 and note ; of Titus, 493 
and note. 

Beccus, a general in Gaul, 457 and note. 

Bedriacum, battle of, 437, 449, 466. 

Berenice, queen, attachment of Titus to her, 
492 and note. 

Bibulus, M., edile 8 and note ; consul with 
J. Caesar, 15 ; lampoon on, 16. 

527 



5^8 



INDEX. 



Bithynia, J. Caesar sent there, 3 and note. 

Boabdicea, queen, 404, 405. 

Britain, invaded by Julius Caesar, 21 ; re- 
connoitred first, 46 ; Caligula's intended 
expedition, 280 and note ; that of Clau- 
dius, 313, 314 ; Nero proposes to abandon, 
362 ; revolt there, 386 and note. 

Britannicus, son of Claudius, 328 ; his re- 
gard for him, 328 340; educated with 
Titus, 487 ; poisoned, 488 ; honours paid 
him by Titus, 488. 

Brutus and Cassius conspire against Julius 
Caesar, 60 ; they assassinate him, 63 ; his 
dying apostrophe to Brutus, 63 and note ; 
their fate, 68 and 82. 

Bulla, the, worn by youths, 66 and note. 

Caenis, concubine of Vespasian, 461 and 
note ; Domitian's conduct to, 490. 

Caesonia, Caligula's mistress and wife, 264 ; 
threatened by him, 272 ; slain, 293. 

Caesario, son of Cleopatra by Caesar, 87. 

Caius and Lucius, sons of Augustus, 96 ; 
their death, 132. 

Caius Caesar, 77. See CALIGULA. 

Calendar, the, corrected by Julius Caesar, 34 
and note ; by Augustus, 103. 

Caligula, his birth, 246; origin of his 
name, 248; with Tiberius at Capri, 249; 
suspected of murdering him, 230, 250; 
succeeds him, 252; bis popularity, 252; 
honours to Germanicus and his family, 
253; his just administration, 254; consul- 
ships, 255 ; public spectacles, 256-259 ; 
public works, 259 ; affects royalty, 260 ; 
and divinity. 260 ; treatment of his female 
relatives, 262, 263 ; of his wives and mis- 
tresses, 264 ; of his friends, 265 ; of the 
magistrates, 265 ; his cruelties, 266-272 ; 
discourages learning, 272 ; disgraces men 
of rank, 272 ; his unnatural lusts, 274 ; his 
unparalleled prodigality, 275; exhausts 
the treasury, 276 ; his rapacity, 276 ; his 
new taxes, 278 ; expedition to Germany, 
280; bravado against Britain, 282 and 
note; his triumph, 282; his person and 
constitution, 284 ; style of dress, 286 ; per- 
sonal accomplishments, 287; his favourite 
horse, 289 ; conspiracies against him, 289 ; 
omens of his fate, 290; he is assassinated, 
292 ; remarks on his life and times, 293- 

295- 
Calpurnia, wife of J. Caesar, 18. 
Canusium, now Canosa, 374, note: 
Capitol, the, burnt by Vitellius, 455 ; rebuilt 

by Vespasian, 472 ; rebuilt by Domitian, 

5o5- 

Capri, island of, exchanged for Ischia, 155 ; 
Augustus visits it, 155, 162; Tiberius re- 
tires there, 206; his debaucheries there, 
207-209. 

Carinae, a street in Rome, 188. 

Carmel, Mount, Vespasian sacrifices at, 466 
and note. 



Caractacus, 314, note ; 344, 345. 

Carpentum, the, 253, note. 

Cassius. See Brutus. 

Chaerea, the assassin of Caligula, 290 

-291. 

Caspian Mountains, pass through, 363 and 
note. 

Catiline's conspiracy. 13, 70. 

Cato, M., at the trial of the Catiline con- 
spirators, 11; yields to political expedi- 
ency, 15 and note ; dragged to prison from 
the senate, 17; threatens to impeach J. 
Caesar, 25. 

Catti, the, 453, note ; 506. 

Censor, office of, no and note. 

Census, how taken, 113. 

Chrestus said to make tumults at Rome, 325 
and note. 

Christians confounded with the Jews. 203, 
note ; accused of sedition. 325 and note ; 
cruelties of Nero to, 361 ; poll tax on, 513, 
note. 

Cicero, M. T., his opinion of J. Caesar, 8 
and 26 ; appealed to by him, 13 ; com- 
mends Caesar's oratory, 43. 

Cilicia, 3 and note. 

Cincinnati, the badge of the, 272 and note. 

Circensian games, description of, 32 and 
note, 33. 

Circeii, near Antium, 229 and note. 

Circus, Flaminian, 315, note ; Maximus, 319 ; 
370 and note. 

Civic crown, description of, 3, note. 

Claudii, family of the, 174-177. 

Claudius, his birth, 298 ; childhood and 
education, 298 ; Augustus's opinion of 
him, 299 ; fills public offices, 301 ; held in 
contempt, 303 ; unexpected elevation. 304 ; 
elected by the praetorian guard, 305 ; hon- 
ours to the family of Augustus, 306 ; his 
moderation, 307 ; conspiracies against 
him, 308 ; conduct as consul and judge, 
309-31 1 ; as censor, 311-313 ; expedition 
to Britain, 313 ; his triumph, 314; care of 
the city and people, 315 ; his public works, 
316; public spectacles, 318-320; civil and 
religious administration, 321, 322; mili- 
tary, 323. 324; banishes the Jews and 
Christians, 325 and note; his marriages, 
326; children, 327; his freedmen and 
favourites, 328 ; governed by them and his 
wives, 329; his person, 330; his enter- 
tainments, 331 ; cruelty, 332 ; fear and dis- 
trust, 333-33S I affects literature. 338, 339 ; 
death by poison, 340; omens previously, 
341 ; remarks on his life and times, 342- 

347- 

Clemens. See Flavius. 

Cleopatra, has Egypt confirmed to her by J. 
Caesar, 29; intrigues with him, 41 ; has a 
son by him, 41 ; kills herself, 86 ; her chil- 
dren by Antony, 87. 

Cologne,' founded by Agrippina, 450 and 
note. 



INDEX. 



5 2 9 



Colonies at Como, 24 and note ; foreign, 36. 

Colosseum, the, begun by Vespasian, 473 
and note ; finished by Titus, 493. 

Commentaries, Caesar's, 44. 

Comet before Nero's death, 383. 

Comitium, the, embellished, 8 and note. 

Como, colony settled there, 24 and note. 

Compitalian festival, flowers used at, 105 
and note. 

Confluentes, Coblentz. 246 and note. 

Cordus Cremutius, a historian, 109 

Cornelia, Julius Caesar's wife, 2 ; her death, 5. 

Corinth. See Isthmus of. 

Cotiso, king of the Getae, 131 and note. 

Cottius, his dominions in the Alps. 204, 363. 

Crassus, aspires to be dictator, 7 ; his con- 
spiracy, 7; becomes security for Julius 
Caesar, 14, note ; reconciled to Pompey, 15. 

Crepida, 186 and note. 

Cunobeline and his son, 280; defeated by 
Aulus Plautius, 314, note. 

Curiae, 132, note. 

Curule chair, 96 and note. 

Cybele, 176 and note ; 435 and note. 

Date trees, introduction of, 518, note. 

Demetrius, the Cynic, 475 and note. 

Dolabella, P., loses a fleet, 30; prosecuted 
by Caesar, 43. 

Domitia, wife of Domitian, 501 ; intrigues 
with Paris, 503 ; denies intrigue with Titus, 
498 ; plots Domitian's death, 516. 

Domitian, his birth, 500; his youth infa- 
mous, 500 ; escapes from Vitellius, 500 ; as- 
sumes power in Rome, 501 ; governs des- 
potically, 501 ; -under Vespasian amused 
himself with poetry, 502 ; plots « against 
Titus, 502; succeeds him, 502; his wife 
Domitia. 501, 502 ; gives costly spectacles, 
503, 504; his public buildings, 505 ; expe- 
ditions, 506 ; his administration, 507 ; his 
cruelties, 510-513 ; extortions, 513 ; poll- 
tax on the Jews, 513 ; his arrogance, 514; 
conspiracy against him, 515 ; alarms and 
omens, 517, 518; his assassination, 519; 
his person and habits, 520-522 ; lewd con- 
duct, 522 ; he is lamented only by the sol- 
diers, 523 ; remarks on his life, 524. 

Domitii, family of, 348-351 ; their tomb, 399 
and note. 

Domitilla, wife of Flavius Clemens. 519, note. 

Druids, religion of, suppressed by Claudius, 
318. 

Drusilla, sister of Caligula, 263. 

, wife of Felix, 329 and note. 

Drusus, brother of Tiberius, 179; his death, 
181. 

, Tiberius's son, 181, 188, 238 ; his 

death, 206, 214, 222, 238 ; son of German- 
icus starved, 216 ; father of Claudius, 296 ; 
died in Germany, 297 ; his character, 297. 

Eagles, the standards of the legions, 48 and 
note ; 252 and note. 



East, the, prophecy of a Ruler from, 463 and 
note, 

Egypt confirmed to Cleopatra, 29 ; supplies 
Rome with corn, 88 ; made a province, 87. 

Elephants, when first introduced at Rome, 
31, note. 

Eleusinian mysteries, 326 and note. 

Emperor, the title of, 56, note. 

Equestrian order, scrutiny of, 108, 112; pro- 
cession of, H2 and note; review of, 254; 
purified by Vespasian, 473. 

Ergastulis (Houses of Correction), 105 and 
note. 

Esseda, a light Gaulish car, 258 and note. 

Family names and cognomena, 175, note. 
Felix, governor of Judaea, 328 ; his wives, 

3 29 - and note. 
Fidenae, disaster at, 206 and note. 
Flamen Dialis, high-priest of Jupiter, 1, note. 
Flavian family, account of, 458 ; temple of, 

505- 
Flavia Domitilla, wife of Vespasian, 461. 
Flavius Clemens, Domitian's cousin, 517; 

put to death, 517 and note ; 519, note. 
Sabinus, Vespasian's brother, 454; 

retreats to the capitol, 455 ; burned there, 

455- 
Florus, Gessius, 464. 
Forum, the Roman, 8; of Julius Caesar, 22; 

of Augustus, 99 and ?iote, 127; of Nerva, 

505 and note. 
Fruits, foreign, introduced at Rome, 518, 

note. 
Fucine lake, drainage of, projected by J. 

Caesar, 37 ; emissary of, 316 and note, 320. 

Galba, not allied to the Caesars, 409; his 
descent, 409; birth, 411 ; studies the law, 
412 ; courted by Agrippina, 412 ; a favour- 
ite of Livia, 413 ; praetor and consul, 413 ; 
commands in Gaul, 413 ; in Africa, 414 ; 
in Spain, 415; on Nero's death assumes 
the title of Caesar, 418 ; marches to Rome, 
418 ; his severiU , 419 ; becomes hateful to 
the people, 422; and the troops, 422; 
omens against him, 423 ; the praetorian re- 
volt. 424; he is slain 425; his person, 
habits, and character, 426, 427. 

Gallus, Cornelius, prefect of Egypt, 134; 
friend of Augustus, 134. 

Gaul. J. Caesar goes there as proconsul, 18 ; 
divided into two provinces, 18, note ; he 
levies troops in, 20 ; his conquests in, 21. 

Gens, meaning of the term, 174, note. 

Germanicus marries Agrippina, 131 ; adopted 
by Tiberius, 189, 242; his triumph, 242; 
his death, 206, 214, 242; his sons, 215; 
his character, 243 ; grief for, 236, 244, 245. 

German tribes, defeated by J. Caesar, 21 ; 
they defeat Varus, 92 ; Caligula's expedi- 
tion against, 280, 281. 

Gessoriacum, Boulogne, 282, note ; 314 and 
note. 



53o 



INDEX. 



Gladiators, combats of, exhibited by Julius, 
9, 22, 31 ; first introduced at Rome, 31, 
note; shown by Caligula, 256; by Domi- 
tian, 503 ; how distinguished, 270, note. 

Golden House, the, of Nero, 374. 

Gymnasia, 184 and note. 

Helvidius Priscus, a philosopher, 476. 
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, 80 ; defeated and 

slain, 80. 
Horse, Caligula's favourite, 289; proposes 

to make him consul, 289. 

Illyricum, conquered, 190. 

Intramural interments at Rome, forbidden, 

174, ?iote. 
Isauricus, Servilius, 3. 
Isthmus of Corinth, canal through, 260, 363 

and note. 

Jerusalem taken by Titus, 489 and note. 

Jews, rites of suppressed by Tiberius, 203 
and note\ expelled from Rome by Clau- 
dius, 325 and note; revolt of, 463, note, 
464; Vespasian's triumph over, 471, 475 
and note ; fate of their sacred vessels, 490, 
note ; figured on the arch of Titus, 490, 
note ; poll-tax on the, 513. 

Josephus, the historian, taken prisoner by 
Vespasian, 466 ; predicts his elevation, 466. 

Journals of the proceedings of the senate 
published by J. Caesar, 15 ; discontinued 
by Tiberius, 254 ; revived by Caligula, 254 

Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar, 2 ; married 
to Cn. Pompey, 18 ; her death, 21. 

, daughter of Augustus, married to 

Marcellus, 131 ; to Agrippa, 131 ; to Ti- 
berius, 131 and 181 ; her children, 131 ; 
banished, 133. 

Julia, granddaughter of Augustus, married 
to Lucius Paulus, 131 ; banished, 132. 

Julian year, the, 34, note. 

Julian harbour at Baiae, 84. 

Julius C^sar, nominated as high priest of 
Jupiter, 1 ; marries Cornelia, 2 ; serves in 
Asia, 2 ; prefers a charge of extortion 
against Dolabella, 4 ; studies under Apol- 
lonius at Rhodes, 4 ; captured by pirates, 
4 ; elected military tribune, 5 ; his account 
of his genealogy, 5 ; commands in Spain, 
6 ; joins Sylla and Crassus, 7 ; his public 
buildings, 8 ; conspires with Cneius Piso, 
8; chosen praetor, 11; his debts, 14 and 
note; obtains command of Farther-Spain, 
14 ; intimidates his colleague Bibulus, 16 ; 
consigns M. Cato to prison, 17; marries 
Calpurnia, 18 ; alliance with Pompey, 18 ; 
has the province of Gaul, 18 ; levies troops 
and wages causeless wars, 20 ; invades 
Britain, 21 ; affects popularity and is lavish 
of money, 22 ; resolves on war, 25 ; crosses 
the Rubicon, 27 ; marches to Rome, 29 ; 
defeats Pompey at Pharsalia, 29 ; his tri- 
umphs, 30; his public spectacles, 31- 



33; corrects the calendar, 34; his civil 
administration, 35-37 ; projected works, 
37 ; person and dress, 38 ; his character, 
scandals on, 40, 41 ; his extortions, 42 ; 
as an orator, 43 ; as a writer, 44, 45 ; as a 
general, 46-52 ; as an advocate and friend, 
52-58 ; his good qualities, 54, 55 ; his 
abuse of power, 55, 59 ; conspiracy against 
him, 59-62 ; his assassination, 63 ; his dy- 
ing apostrophe to Brutus, 63, note ; his 
will, 64; funeral, 65; apotheosis, 67; fate 
of his assassins, 68 ; his ambition, 71 ; re- 
marks on his life and times, 69-72. 

Latus Clavus, 38, note. 

Laurel grove of the Caesars, 408 and note. 

Lepidus, Marcus, 4 ; master of the horse to 
Julius Caesar, 64 ; one of the triumviri, 79 ; 
the confederacy renewed, 81 ; banished, 
85 ; his death, 103. 

Lictors attend the consuls, 16 aa-fd note. 

Libraries, public : the Palatine, formed by 
Augustus, 100; of Alexandria, 521. 

Liveries, colours of the imperial, 514, note. 

Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus, 131, 234, 
296; mother of Tiberius, 187; his treat- 
ment of her, 212, 213 ; her death, 213 ; 
divine honours decreed to, 306. 

Ocellina, mother of Galba, 410. 



Livius, Titus, 338 and note. 
Lollius, governor of Agrippa, 186, 187. 
Lucius Vettius, an informer, 13, 17. 
Lupercalia, feast of, 59 and note ; 104. 
Lustrum, the, 98, note. 

Marcellus, Claudius, opposes Caesar, 23 
Marius, C, his trophies restored, 10. 
Marmillo, a kind of gladiator, 288, 510. 
Mars, the sacrifice to, 73. 
Masgabas, 163 and note. 
Master of the horse, 7, note. 
Mausoleum of Augustus, 166 and note ; 253. 
Mecaenas, Augustus complains ofj, 135 ; his 

house and gardens on the Esquiline, 141, 

188. 
Messalina, wife of Claudius, 315, 327 ; put 

to death, 327 ; her character, 345. 
Metellus, Caecilius, supported by J. Caesar 

in his conflict with the senate, 12. 
Milestone, gilded (milliare aureum), 432 and 

note. 
Minerva, the shield of, a dish made for Vi- 

tellius, 452. 
Misenum, a naval station, 122 ; Tiberius sails 

there, 229 and note. 
Mithridates revolts, 5. 
Mitylene, 3, note. 
Money-lenders, lampoon on Augustus for 

his father's being one, 138 and note, and 

351- 
Month, the Roman, how divided, 155, note. 
Mother of the gods. See Cybele. 
Municipia, 165, note. 
Muraana, conspiracy of, 88, 128, 135. 



INDEX. 



53i 



Names, Roman, 175, note. 

Naples, a Greek colony, 306, note. 

Narbonne, a Roman colony, 178. 

Narcissus, a freedman of Claudius, 329, 335. 

Naumachia, of Julius 33; of Augustus, 117; 
Nero, 357 ; Titus, 493 ; of Domitian, 503 ; 
erected by him, 506. 

Nemi, lake of, 274, note. 

Nero, his descent, 348-351; birth, 352; 
youth, 353, 354; succeeds Claudius, 355; 
begins his reign well, 355 ; gives spectacles 
and largesses, 356-359 ; receives king Tir- 
idates, 359; administration of justice, 360 ; 
his public buildings, 360 ; cruelties to the 
Christians, 361 and note; undertakes no 
foreign wars, 363 ; appears on the stage 
as a singer at Naples, 364 ; at Rome, 365 ; 
as a charioteer, 367 ; in Greece, 368 ; tri- 
umphal return, 369-371 ; his revels and 
vices, 371 ; foul debaucheries, 372; prodi- 
gality, 373 ; his Golden House, 374 ; other 
works, 375 ; extortions, 376 ; his murders : 
Britannicus, 377 ; his mother, 379 ; his re- 
morse, 380; marries Poppaea Sabina, 381 ; 
Messalina, 381; his butcheries, 384; sets 
fire to Rome, 385 and note ; sings whilst it 
is burning, 385; disasters in Britain, 386 
and note ; and in the East, 386 ; lampoons 
on him, 386 ; revolt of Vindex, in Gaul, 
388 ; appeals to the senate, 389 ; Galba de- 
clares against him in Spain, 390 ; proposes 
to march against Vindex, 391 ; his per- 
plexities, 394; escapes from Rome, 396; 
kills himself, 398 ; his person, 399 ; accom- 
plishments, 400 ; religious sentiments, 401 ; 
remarks on his life and times, 403-407. 

Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, Julius Caesar 
at his court, 2 ; scandals respecting them, 2. 

Nicopolis, why built, 88. 

Nola, Augustus dies there, 164 ; his temple 

there, 206. 
Nomenclators, 88, note. 
Nundinae, the, 153 and note. 

Obelisks, Egyptian, 317 and note. 

Octavia, wife of Nero, 381 and note. 

Octavii, the family of, 73. 

Octavius, Caius, father of Augustus, 74. 

Odeum, erected by Domitian, 506. 

Orcini, a name of reproach, 106 and note. 

Organ, the hydraulic, 371 and note. 

Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, 184 and 
note ; harbour formed, 317. 

OTHO, his ancestors, 428 ; his birth, 429 ; 
gets into Nero's favour, 429 ; marries Pop- 
paea pro forma, 430 ; sent into Spain, 430 ; 
joins Galba, 431 ; practises against him, 
431 ; chosen emperor by the praetorians, 
433 ; and Viteliius, by the German army, 
434 ; he marches against Viteliius, 435 ; his 
troops defeated at Bedriacum, 437 ; makes 
no further resistance, 438 ; calmly puts an 
end to his life, 439 ; his person and habits, 
439 ; devotion of his soldiers, 440. 



Ovation, 91 and note. 

Oxheads, a street in Rome, 76 and note. 

Palace of the Caesars, 374, note. 

Palatine Hill, 76 and notes; Augustus's 

house there, 140; enlarged by Caligula, 

261 ; the Golden House added by Nero, 

374> 387, note ; Tiberius's house, 455. 
Palilia, the day on which Rome was founded, 

255 and note. 
Pallas, a freedman of Claudius, 329 and note. 
Pallium, 163, note ; 186 and note. 
Pansa. See Hirtius. 
Pantheon, built by Agrippa, 102, note. 
Paris, an actor, intrigues with Domitia, 503. 
Parthia, 245, note. 
Pater patriae, the title, first conferred on 

Cicero, 56, note. 
Pearls found in Britain, 39 and note. 
Penates, the, 377, note. 
Petronia, wife of Viteliius, 446. 
Pharmacusa, island of, 4 and note. 
Pharsalia, battle of, 29 ; speech of J. Caesar 

after, 28 ; his call to the troops • at, 55 ; 

significance of the victory, 72. 
Philippi, battle of, 81; Augustus's escape at, 

153- 

Pincian hill, 399 and note. 

Piso, Cneius, conspires with Caesar, 8. 

, prefect of Syria, 243 ; suspected of 

poisoning Germanicus, 243 ; his con- 
spiracy, 383. 

Podium, 358 and note. 

Pomegranate, street so called, 500 and note. 

Pompeius Sextus, wars of Augustus with, 79. 

Pompeia, wife of Julius Caesar, 6. 

Pompey, Cn , reconciled with Crassus, 15 ; 
marries Julia, 18 ; supports her father, J. 
Caesar, 18 ; meets him at Lucca, 20 ; sole 
consul, 21 ; offered Octavia in marriage, 
23 ; his opinion of Julius Caesar, 25 ; flies 
to Brundusium, 28 ; defeated at Pharsalia, 
29 ; his statues restored, 55 ; his senate- 
house, 61 and note. 

Pontine Marshes, drainage of, 37. 

Popae, the, 271 and note. 

Poppas, Sabina, Nero's wife, 381 ; he kills 
her, 382 ; Otho marries her pro forma, 430. 

Porticos ; of Lucius and Caius, 101 ; of Livia 
and Octavia, 101 and note ; of the Argo- 
nauts, 102, note. 

Posts established, 122. 

Praenestine lots, the, 223 and note. 

Pretorian guards of Tiberius, 211 ; elect 
Claudius, 305 ; salute Nero, 355 ; mutiny 
against Galba, 422 ; dispatch him, 424 ; 
commanded by Titus, 491. 

Pretorian camp, 259, note ; its position, 396, 
note. 

Principia, the, 433 and note. 

Procurators, their office, 307, note. 

Prompters (nomenclators), 88 and note. 

Psylli, the, 86 and note. 

Ptolemy Auletes expelled, 10. 



532 



INDEX. 



Public health, augury of, 104 and note. 
Publius Clodms debauches Pompeia, 6 ; is 

Cicero's enemy, 17 ; murdered, 21 ; his 

trial, 54 
Puteoli, 162, note ; Caligula's bridge at, 257 ; 

the landing place from the East, 490. 

Quintilian, remarks on, 524. 

Catulus, repairs the Capitol, 12 and 

note. 

Rabirius Posthumus prosecuted, 10, 312. 

Ravenna, J. Caesar halts there, 25 ; a naval 
station, 122. 

Reate, a town of the Sabines, 458 ; Vespasian 
born there, 459 ; his estates near, 483 ; he 
dies there, 484 ; as does Titus, 498 

Republic, the, Augustus thinks of restoring, 
98 ; the forms of, preserved, 199 ; main- 
tained by Caligula, 254 ; proposal to re- 
store it, 293. 

Rex Memorensis, 273 and note. 

Rhine, the, suddenly thaws, 506. 

Rhodes, J. Caesar retires there, 4; and Ti- 
berius, 184. 

Roman people, their love of public specta- 
cles, 204 and note ; largesses of corn to, 
3i 6 . 318. 

Rome, corruption in, 15 and note, 70; im- 
provements of Augustus, 99 ; divided into 
districts, 102; Nero's fire, 385; restored 
by Vespasian 472; great fire under Titus, 
495 and note. 

Roads. See Via. 

Rubicon, the, crossed by Jul. Caesar, 27. 



Sabinus, Flavius, brother of Vespasian,' 454, 
455- 

Salii, the, 332 and note. 

Saturnalia, account of, 256, note, 479 and note. 

Scaeva, a centurion, his heroic conduct, 51. 

Scribonia, wife of Augustus, 130, 131. 

Secular games, by Augustus, 104 ; by Clau- 
dius, 318. 

Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, 
265 and note. 

Sella Curulis, the, 96, note. 

Sejanus, Tiberius's suspicions of, 220, 250 ; 
his conspiracy, 224; account of, 238, 239. 

Senate, filled up by Julius, 35 ; affronted by 
him, 57; scrutiny of, 108; qualification 
for, 115, 322; purified by Vespasian, 473. 

Seneca, Annaeus, made Nero's tutor, 354; 
forced to kill himself, 382. 

Septa, what, 116 and note. 

Septizonium, the, description of, 487, note. 

Sertorius commands in Spain, 5. 

Servilia, mother of M. Brutus, J. Caesar in- 
trigues with her, 40. 

Sesterce, the value of, 478, note. 

Seven Hills, Festival "of the, 505 and note. 

Sibylline books preserved by Augustus, 103. 



Silanus betrothed to Claudius's daughter, 

328 ; — the elder, put to death, 330, 335. 
Silius, a paramour of Messahna, 322, 330. 
Silversmiths. See Money-lenders. 
Sigillana, 313, note. 
Slaves, in what circumstances employed as 

soldiers, 84 ; workhouses of, 105 and note ; 

writers and artists originally such, 478 and 

note. 
Spain, province of, governed by Julius Caesar, 

6, 14 ; Pompey's army in, 29 ; Galba com- 
mands there, 416. 
Spolia Opima, the, 297 and note. 
Sporus, Nero's freedman, 396, 398. 
Sportulae, 361, note ; abolished by Domitian, 

5°7- 
Stadium, 506 and note. 
Standards, Roman, 48, note ; 252 and note. 
Statues of the kings of Rome, 56 and note ; 

of Pompey, 105. 
Strigil, 146, note. 
Stylus, the, 63, note. 
Suburra, a street in Rome, 39 and note. 
Suetonius Paulinus, commands in Britain, 

404, 437, note. 
, Lenis, the author's father, serves 

under Otho, 437, note. 
Sumptuary laws of Julius Caesar, 37. 
Supernumeraries, soldiers so called, 323. 
Sylla pardons Julius Caesar, 2 ; conspires 

with Caesar and Crassus, 7 ; his statues 

restored, 55. 

Tablets (Pugillaria), 112 and note. 

Tanusius, Geminus, his "Annals" charac- 
terized by Seneca, 7, note. 

Taurus, Statilius, 102, 381. 

Temple of Castor and Pollux, 9 and note, 
192, 261 ; of Jupiter Capitolinus repaired, 
12 and notes, &c. ; of Venus Genetrix, 48, 
57 ; Mars Ultor, 90 and note, 99 ; Janus 
Quirinus, 91, 104, note ; Palatine Apollo, 
99, ioo, 101, note; Jupiter Tonans, 99, 
101, note; Hercules and Muses, 101 ; the 
Pantheon, 101, note ; of Concord, 192 and 
note ; of Vesta, 212 and note ; of Au- 
gustus, 259; Diana Nemorensis, 274, note ; 
Jupiter Latialis, 300 and note ; of ^Escu- 
lapius, 324, note ; of Peace, 473 and note ; 
of Claudius, 473 and note ; of Jupiter Cus- 
tos, 505 ; of the Flavian Family, 505, 520. 

Terracina, Tiberius's villa there, 206 and 
note. 

Tertia, mistress of Julius Caesar, 40. 

Theatres— of Pompey, 105, 210 ; rebuilt, 318 ; 
of Marcellus, 101 and note ; repaired, 
479 ; Pompey's restored by Tiberius, 210 ; 
by Caligula, 259 ; rebuilt by Claudius, 318. 

Thensa, the, 118 and note. 

Theogenes, an astrologer of Apollonia, 159. 

Thermus, M, 3. 

Thrasyllus, the astrologer, 258. 

Thrax, a kind of gladiator, 510. 

Thurinus, a surname of Augustus, 77. 









INDEX. 



533 



Tiberius, descent of, 174-179; his child 
hood, 179; youth, 180; in the forum, 181; 
in the wars, 182 ; withdraws from Rome, 
183 ; retirement at Rhodes, 184 ; returns 
to Rome, 187 ; commands in Germany and 
Illyricum, 189, 190 ; adopted by Augustus, 
189; triumphs, 191, made colleague with 
Augustus, 192; succeeds him, 194; gov 
ems with moderation, 197-201 ; sumptuary 
laws, 201 ; represses the Jewish religion, 
203; and Christian, 203 and note; his 
rigorous justice, 204; retires to Capri, 206; 
his debaucheries there, 207-209 ; his par- 
simony, 209 ; exactions and robberies, 211 ; 
treatment of Livia, 212, 213 ; of Drusus 
and Germanicus, 214 : of Agrippina, 214, 
215 ; his grandsons, 216 ; his harsh temper, 
216 ; various cruelties, 217-223 ; his re- 
morse, 225 ; his person 226 ; literary pur- 
suits, 227 ; his last illness, 229 ; and death, 
230; rejoicings at it, 231; his will, 232; 
remarks on his life and times, 233-241. 

Tiber, inundations of the, 99 and fiote ; bed 
of, cleaned, 102 and note ; floods, 212, 
note; criminals thrown into, 221; island 
of Esculapius, in the, 323 and note. 

Tiridates, king, at Rome, 373 and note. 

Titus, his birth and disposition, 487; edu- 
cated with Britannicus, 487 ; the honours 
he paid him, 488 ; endowments, personal 
and mental, 488 ; serves in Germany and 
Britain, 488 ; in Judaea, 489 ; takes Jeru- 
salem, 489 and note ; returns to Rome, 
490 ; is colleague with Vespasian, 490 ; is 
harsh and unpopular, 491 ; his attachment 
to Berenice, 492 ; his character brightens, 
492 ; his moderation and munificence, 493 ; 
public buildings and spectacles, 493 and 
note; his clemency, 493; relief of great 
disasters, 495 ; avoids shedding blood, 
496 ; taken suddenly ill, 497 ; dies on his 
paternal estate, 498 ; remarks on his life 
and times, 498, 499. 

Toga, 114 and note ; 142 and note. 

, Praetexta, in; Virilis, m. 

Tomb of the Domitii, 399 and note. 

Torquatus, the Collar of, 272 and note. 

Transvectio, the, an equestrian procession, 
112, note. 

Treviri (Treves), 246, 248, note. 

Tribunes, 69. 

Triumphs of Julius Caesar, 30, 31 ; Augustus, 
91 ; description of a, 91, note ; Tiberius, 
191; Germanicus, 242; of Vespasian and 
Titus, 475 and note; 490 and note; of 
Domitian, 506. 

Trojan Game, the, 117. 

Varus's defeat by the Germans, 92, 190. 
Velabrum, a street in Rome. 30, 371. 
Velitrae, town of, seat of the Octavian family, 

73. 77- 
" Veni, Vidi, Vici," 31. 



Venus of Cos, statue of, by Apelles, 479. 

Vespasian, his descent from the Flavian 
family, 458 ; his birth at Reate, 459 ; fond 
ness for it, 460 ; serves in Thrace, 460 ; 
has the province of Crete and Cyrene, 460 ; 
marries Flavia Domitilla, 461 ; his children, 
461 ; serves in Germany and Britain, 462; 
is proconsul in Africa, 462 ; goes inte re- 
tirement, 463 ; sent to quell the Jews' revolt, 
464 ; the prophecy of a ruler from the East 
applied to him, 463 and note ; his cam- 
paign in Judaea, 464 ; consults the oracle 
at Carmel, 466 ; the Maesian army declares 
him emperor, 467 ; also the legions in 
Egypt and Judaea, 467, 468 ; seizes Alex- 
andria, 468 ; consults Serapis, 468 ; per- 
forms miracles, 469, 470 and note ; returns 
to Rome, 471 ; his Jewish triumph, 471 ; 
reforms the army, 472 ; his public build- 
ings, 473 ; his just administration, 474 ; 
and clemency, 475 ; his love of money, 
477 ; encourages learning and art, 478 ; his 
person, 480; mode of life, 480; his Wit, 
482 ; is taken ill, 483 ; dies at Reate, 484; 
remarks on his life and times, 484-486. 

Vestal Virgins, the, 64; mode of appoint- 
ment, 104 and note ; their lewdness pun- 
ished, 508. 

Vesuvius, Mount, eruption of, 495. 

Via Appia, 229 and note ; 257, note. 

Flaminia, 102 and note ; 166. 

Nomentana, 396, note. 

— Sacra, a street in Rome, 39, 456. 
Salaria, description of, 396, note; 



tomb there, 474. 

Vienne, in Narbonne, 448 and note. 

Vines forbidden to be planted, 507; edict 
revoked, 516. 

Vindex, Julius, revolts in Gaul, 388, 416 ; his 
death, 418. 

Vintage, the, 109 and note. 

VlTELLiUS, his origin, 441, 442 ; and birth, 
444 ; his youth vicious, 445 ; in favour with 
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, 445 ; his mar- 
riages, 446 ; sent to Germany, 446 ; saluted 
emperor by the troops, 448 ; marches to 
Rome, 449 ; governs despotically, 449 ; 
his gluttony and luxury, 451, 452; his 
cruel executions, 452 ; the legions declare 
against him, 454; agrees to abdicate, 454; 
secretes himself, 455 ; is dragged out and 
slain, 456 ; remarks on his life, 457. 

Virgil, 153, note. 

Vologesus honours Nero's memory, 402 ; 
offers reinforcements to Vespasian, 468; 
demands succours, 502. 

Vonones, king of the Parthians, 21 1. 

Wild beasts shown in the public spectacles 
by Julius, 9 ; by Augustus, 117, 118 ; crim- 
inals thrown to, 309 and note ; numbers 
exhibited, 493, note; exhibited by Do- 
mitian, 503. 



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